The Jenkins Television Corporation
Donald G. Godfrey · University of Illinois Press eBooks · 2017
This chapter focuses on the Jenkins Television Corporation, founded by C. Francis Jenkins on November 16, 1928, under the laws of the State of Delaware. Jenkins Television combined Jenkins' television and Lee De Forest's radio patents, their technology, and their salable names. It was designed for manufacturing and selling equipment created by the Jenkins Laboratories, and was financed to meet the demands for receivers. This chapter begins with a discussion of Jenkins' relocation of W3XK to Wheaton, Maryland, along with some of the station's program innovations. It also considers Jenkins Television's creation of two television stations, W2XCR in Jersey City and WGBS in New York City; demonstrations of a “flying laboratory” for home transmission of radio movies; and lawsuits that hounded Jenkins and Jenkins Television. Finally, it examines the impact of the stock market collapse in 1929 on Jenkins' companies and the eventual downfall of the Jenkins Television Corporation before reflecting on Jenkins' death in 1934.