perham collection – Page 2 – History San Jose

Perham Collection Creator Profile: Charles and Sybil Herrold

May 14, 2021May 14, 2021 by historysanjose

View items related to Charles & Sybil Herrold and KQW in History San Jose's Collection Charles “Doc” Herrold (1875-1948) began experimenting with electronics even before studying physics and astronomy. In 1898, he dropped out of Stanford to devote himself to invention, devising an illuminator for deep sea diving, a remote…

Perham Collection Creator Profile: Royden Thornberg

May 11, 2021May 16, 2021 by historysanjose

Royden Thornberg was born October 6, 1891, in San Francisco, California, and worked as a telegrapher, radio operator and inventor, as well as proprietor of the Thornberg Electrical Works on Natoma Street in San Francisco. Thornberg inherited the electrical business from his father, A. F. Thornberg. Much of their work…

Perham Collection Creator Profile: Ralph Heintz

May 11, 2021May 14, 2021 by historysanjose

View items related to Ralph Heintz and Heintz & Kaufman in the Perham Collection of Early Electronics By the 1920s, pilots, explorers, and adventurers were pressing for improved communications, as the possibilities for shortwave radio significantly improved navigation and safety. Shortwave’s higher frequency needed less power, allowing for lighter and…

Perham Collection Creator Profile: William W. Hanscom

May 11, 2021May 16, 2021 by historysanjose

William Wallace Hanscom was a mechanical engineer in San Francisco who was initially involved in the manufacture and installation of electrical apparatus on board ships for the U.S. Navy and merchant marine. In 1909 he became a consultant engineer in the areas of building installations for light, heat and ventilation,…

Perham Collection Creator Profile: Federal Telegraph Company

May 11, 2021May 16, 2021 by historysanjose

By 1909, the American Marconi Company had a virtual monopoly on wireless communications on the West Coast. That year, a small Palo Alto company, Poulsen Wireless Telephone and Telegraph Company (soon renamed Federal Telegraph Company), emerged as a dangerous competitor. Recent Stanford graduate Cyril Elwell was determined to be a…

Perham Collection Creator Profile: Philo Farnsworth

May 11, 2021May 16, 2021 by historysanjose

In 1920, while working on his family’s Idaho farm, 13-year old Philo Farnsworth conceived of a way to electronically photograph an image, then reconstruct the picture elsewhere. He spent years poring over books provided by his science teachers to study electron theory and photoelectric materials. Although he designed a complete…

Perham Collection Creator Profile: Lloyd Espenschied

May 11, 2021May 16, 2021 by historysanjose

Lloyd Espenschied was born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1889, and became an amateur radio operator in 1904. While living with relatives of his mother in Brooklyn, New York, he worked as a shipboard wireless operator for the United Wireless Telegraph Company during summer vacations. It was during this time…

Perham Collection Creator Profile: Harold Elliott

May 11, 2021May 16, 2021 by historysanjose

Harold Farley Elliott was born in Durango, Colorado, on June 17, 1892, to Wilbur S. Elliott and Henrietta Farley Elliott. Elliott’s only sibling, Jean Elliott, was born in 1895. Elliott grew up in Prescott, Arizona and graduated from Prescott High School in 1911. He then attended Stanford University, where he…

Perham Collection Creator Profile: Eitel-McCullough, Inc. (EIMAC)

May 11, 2021May 16, 2021 by historysanjose

It was 1929, and William W. Eitel had come to San Francisco to ask Ralph Heintz for a job. “What kind of work are you doing now?” asked Heintz. “I’m driving a grocery wagon.” “What other things do you have to recommend you?” “I’m a radio ham.” “Well, that’s good…

Perham Collection Creator Profile: Lee de Forest

May 11, 2021May 16, 2021 by historysanjose

Few individuals better represent the vicissitudes of invention than Lee de Forest, an ambitious experimenter and inventor with more than 300 patents, but whose business ventures often failed or became embroiled in litigation. Born in Council Bluffs, Iowa, on August 26, 1873, de Forest grew up at Talladega College, where…

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