African American Steering Committee this year would like to take note of some of its rich history featuring notable creatives, artisans, scientists and leaders. This year’s Cut To Black “Did you know?” will celebrate inventors and their inventions of everyday objects that have contributed to the storytelling of films and television.
Frederick McKinley Jones
1893- 1961
After military service in World War I, Jones returned to Hallock farm, in Minnesota. He worked as a mechanic while learning about electronics. He built a transmitter for the town’s first radio station. He also invented a device to combine sound with motion pictures. This attracted the attention of local entrepreneur Joseph A. Numero of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Numero owned a company that manufactured audio equipment called Ultra-phone Sound Systems Inc. and was later renamed Cinema Supplies Inc. He hired Jones in 1927 as an electrical engineer to improve the audio equipment made by his firm. Jones worked on converting silent movie projectors into audiovisual projectors. In addition, he devised ways to stabilize and improve the picture quality. In 1939, Jones invented and received a patent for an automatic ticket-dispensing machine to be used at movie theaters. He later sold the patent rights to RCA.
According to MIT, he also invented the first process that enabled movie projectors to playback recorded sound, making talking pictures possible.
In 1991, then-President George H.W. Bush awarded the National Medal of Technology posthumously to Jones and his partner Joseph A. Numero. Bush presented the awards to their widows at a White House Rose Garden ceremony. Jones was the first Black American to receive the award.
Be the first to comment