Russian-born engineer Vladimir K. Zworykin filed for a patent on his Television System, which would evolve into television. He was employed by Westinghouse at the time, having immigrated to the U.S. during the Russian Civil War. He died in 1982, living to an undetermined age in his early 90s.
Television advertisement from 1939.
Zworykin wasn't the only individual working on televised images, and his system wasn't the only one that was around. A system by a rival inventor, John Logie Baird, would be the first one on the market, coming at an amazingly early 1928, with the first television station, WRGB, then W2XB, broadcasting from the General Electric facility in Schenectady, NY. For various reason, however, television didn't really take off until after World War Two, with the 1950s really seeing an explosion in its use. Even at that, however, many households did not have televisions until the 1960s. I can recall the first television our family had, which must have been acquired in the mid 1960s. My mother bought it as a gift for my father, but had as an additional motive the hope that he'd spend more evenings at home rather than stop by to visit his mother, who lived a couple of blocks away. Indeed, my father took to television (my mother never did), and her hopes were realized.
Test pattern from when local television stations quit broadcasting at night, and reappeared in the morning, with this image. I can recall this appearing on our television early in the morning when my father first turned it on.
That experience really shows one of the frankly negative aspects of what would prove to be a groundbreaking technology. Prior to television, while radio had arrived, there was still a great deal of "make your own entertainment" and the visiting of friends and relatives in the evenings. Television helped end all that, which proved to be a radical shift in long held societal patterns. Interestingly, television itself has never portrayed that change, and continues to depict life in large part as it had been before its arrival. You don't see television programs in which people sit around and watch television.
As we've noted here before, early television was all locally broadcast, from locally owned stations. Indeed, the FCC strictly regulated this latter aspect of television, which of course broadcast over the public airways. Cable made major inroads, however, not television and a near deregulation of the industry has mean that it now broadcasts over multiple channels, in multiple ways, 24 hours a day, with local ownership often not existing.
Televisions ultimately became so common that by the early 2000s, most American households contained three of them. The number is now down to 2.5, reflecting the advance of computers, which has cut into television use.
All in all, while undoubtedly there are other opinions, television has been enormously corrosive and detrimental to society.
Germany agreed to pay France's and Belgium's expenses for occupying the Ruhr. The UK objected to the French collecting taxes on a British owned mined in the region.
The SS Mutlah disappeared in the Mediterranean with all of its 40 hands lost.
The Mexican Federal Army was advancing towards Vera Cruz, the rebels having been routed. . . and industrial school girls were on the warpath.
The Saturday magazines were out.
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