The History and Evolution of Television: The Early Years!

Have you ever wondered what the world would be like without television? How would you exist? What would you do to keep up with the news of the world? We have certainly come a long way since the first images were televised across the airwaves into a box that was watched either at a wealthy friends home, or in a storefront window downtown.

It is very hard for young people today to even fathom the idea of life without television, but that time actually did exist. In the 1800's the idea of images coming from a box in your home was not even a consideration. Most people didn't know it was even possible. Families would provide their own entertainment by socializing with neighbors or going downtown to meet with friends. If they were not able to go to town, they would simply entertain themselves at home by reading to each other or maybe the family would sing or dance together.

But while this was the normal lifestyle, there were others who did dream of seeing real life images transported into a picture device of some type. Ever since Benjamin Franklin discovered how to harness electricity, inventors have been trying to find ways to put it to use. Thomas Edison found a way to illuminate our homes while Alexander Graham Bell created a device which would transmit voices over a line into our homes. Have you ever tried to explain to you kids that a phone use to have a cord attached to it? Even worse than that, many of our grandparents use to have to go down to the store to use the phone, and then it had to be cranked in order to get someone on the line.

Communication devices have certainly come a long way. But it would be the invention of the television which would drastically change the way people used their leisure time. From that moment on, the world as they knew it would begin to grow smaller, as more and more devices were invented, limiting the time it would take to communicate with people all over the world. Today we get impatient if we are not connected to someone instantaneously, but back then having to wait a couple hours to get a connection on the phone was actually considered fascinating. Very few people understood how it was done, but of course they were happy to have the new technology.

In 1862, while the United States was in the middle of a Civil War,and Abner Doubleday was creating the American National pasttime that would become Baseball, a man named Abbe Giovanna Caselli became the first person to transmit a still image over wires using his device called a Pantelegraph. Like all other great inventions, he was just one of many people in the race to transmit images, but he would be the first to accomplish this great feat.

Thirty years prior to Caselli's discovery, two men named Joseph Henry and Michael Faraday, in 1831 would begin experimenting with electromagnetism. This would actually begin the race to transmitting images. Other great inventors would make discoveries which would add to the possibilities of what could be done with visual imagery.

In 1873, two scientists named May and Smith would begin experiments with selenium and light, creating the possibility of transforming images into electronic signals. In 1876, George Carey from Boston began to consider the idea of a complete television system, and Eugen Goldsten would coin the phrase "Cathode Rays" to describe what happens when light is emitted from a vacuum tube.

In the 1880's Alexander Graham Bell was at it again. Not satisfied with transmitting voices over lines, he began experimenting with what he called a "Photophone" for sending images. In 1884, a German Engineering student named Paul Nipkow would patent the world's first electromechanical television system.

The word "television" was not actually a part of our vocabulary until Russian Scientist Constantin Perskyi used the term at the first International Congress of Electricity at the 1900 World's Fair in Paris. From this point on, the development of the television would begin in earnest. Two different paths were taken. Some would attempt to create televisions based on the old style of mechanical development, while the forward thinking inventors would base their creations on electronic systems around the cathode ray tube.

Two men who were proponents of the cathode ray tube system were working for Westinghouse, which later became RCA. Their work would make them legends in the creation of the television. Working out of San Francisco, these two men, Philo Farnsworth and Vladimir Zworkin, would take the new invention farther than anyone else could imagine with their progressive ideas.

In 1927, Bell Telephone and the U.S. Department of Commerce would conduct a long distance experiment by sending an image between Washington D.C. and New York City. This would become the first experiment of this kind. Later that year, Philo Farnsworth would file a patent for the first complete electronic television system. A device he would call the Image Dissector.

Television would now jump into high gear as the Federal Trade Commission would issue the first television station license to station W3XK in 1928. The license would be given to Charles Jenkins, who would open the first television station in Wheaton,Maryland. He was an early proponent of the mechanical television system, and actually had great success with it. He called his invention "Radiovision" and began to sell the sets to th public for between $85 and $135.

With his new station license in hand, Charles Jenkins would begin regular broadcasts of his radiomovies across the Eastern United States. The images that were transmitted were often blurry and required the viewer to re-tune the device on a regular basis, but the idea of watching pictures being transmitted was so revolutionary that no one seemed to mind the inconvenience. Mr. Jenkins radiovisor or radiovision as it would become, was actually a multitube radio set with a special attachment for receiving images. The images would be projected onto a six inch square mirror. But even with the blurry images, the viewers still considered this a miracle of inventive genius.

While many Americans were making great advancements in the new technology, an inventor in England was making progress of his own on television designs. John Logie Baird had received a degree in electrical engineering from the Glascow and West of Scotland Technical College (now known as Strathclyde University),and along with American Clarence W. Hansell, had patented the idea of using arrays of transparent rods to transmit images in 1920. In 1924, Baird was credited with creating the first televised pictures of objects in motion, and in 1925, he was the first to transmit the image of a human face. He made history again in 1928 when he transmitted the image of a human face across the Atlantic Ocean. Before 1930, Baird would also be the first to display the ideas of color television,stereoscopic television and television by infra-red light.

Television would truly become a part of our culture as more and more Tv stations would be started. In 1933, Iowa State University would broadcast a twice weekly television program from its station W9XK. By 1936 over 200 television stations would be broadcasting around the world. Another advancement in technology would occur in 1936 as the first coaxial cable, made from pure copper or copper-coated wire would be used in the television industry. From this point on there was no stopping the pioneers of this new advancement in society.

The television was here to stay. The only question would be how far could they go with it, and what would TV allow them to do? This was really a new frontier, and only limited by their imagination. Today it would seem that imagination is limitless, as technology is advancing faster than we can keep up. But back at the beginning of the 19th century, no one could have fathomed where television would take them.

For more information about the invention of television, please refer to the following websites:

Abbe Giovanna Caselli -http://www.acmi.net.au/AIC/CASELLI_BIO.html
Alexander Graham Bell -http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/bltele phone2.htm
Paul Nipkov -http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blnipk ov.htm
Philo Farnsworth -http://www.time.com/time/time100/scientist/profile/ farnsworth.html
Valdimir Zworkin -http://newmedia.scetv.org/dtvcd/content/overview/ov erview2.html
Charles Jenkins -http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blchar lesjenkins.htm
John Lgie Baird -http://inventors.about.com/library/inventors/blbair d.htm