Abstract
If the 1930s was the de Forest decade of confusion and resolution, the 1940s will be the decade of the rant. By the 1930s his sound-on-film inventions were universally used by Hollywood for their profit, and while de Forest fought his film patents in court, there was no significant monetary or psychic benefit. He did win a final battle with Major Armstrong but it too only led to a giant letdown, a collective “so what?” He found the good wife, marrying the kind, beautiful, and doting Marie for lifetime marital happiness. But the decade of the 1940s will find Lee de Forest with less to do, less money for lawyers, and even a few unimportant inventions to file. The 1940s de Forest will be a seemingly always peeved person, upset with the Major, upset with radio programming, but living in Hollywood and carefully outlining his legacy. In the last de Forest decade, the 1950s, he will finally find his reward.
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Notes
- 1.
Lee de Forest in Father of Radio, Wilcox and Follett, Chicago, 1950, abbreviated in this book as FOR.
- 2.
FM Magazine, March 1944.
- 3.
Allen B. DuMont, letter to de Forest, April 26th, 1944, Perham de Forest papers.
- 4.
De Forest letter to DuMont, April 28th, 1944, Perham de Forest papers.
- 5.
Allen DuMont, letter to Senator Wheeler, May 3rd, 1944, Perham de Forest papers.
- 6.
De Forest letter to attorney Sam Darby Jr., April, 1944, Perham de Forest papers.
- 7.
This draft letter has been hand corrected by de Forest, letter to FM Magazine, April, 1944, Perham de Forest papers.
- 8.
ibid.
- 9.
ibid.
- 10.
De Forest attorney Samuel Darby Jr. letter to de Forest, May 6th, 1944, Perham de Forest papers.
- 11.
ibid.
- 12.
De Forest letter in Scientific American, July 1954, Perham de Forest papers.
- 13.
ibid.
- 14.
The author’s work in this area: Mike Adams, “The Device that Defined a Decade,” BEA Feedback, 33:1, Winter 1992.
- 15.
Jeanne Hammond, “The Father of FM: The Tragic Story of Major E. H. Armstrong, Yonkers Historical Society, from http://www.yonkershistory.org.
- 16.
Radio play, “The Lee de Forest Story,” NBC Radio series Behind the Mike, Episode 27, aired March 23, 1941.
- 17.
See Chap. 4 for the actual details of this trial.
- 18.
Radio Play, “The Lee de Forest Story,” NBC Radio series, Behind the Mike, Episode 27, aired March 23rd, 1941.
- 19.
Lee de Forest, live on-air interview, March 1941, NBC radio series, “Behind the Mike,” episode 27, The Lee de Forest Story.
- 20.
ibid.
- 21.
Frank E. Butler, “Making Wireless History With De Forest, Radio Broadcast, December 1924, p211–219.
- 22.
De Forest, 1945 booklet compilation of Hollywood Reporter articles written in the 1940s, Perham de Forest papers. In this booklet of 20 business, programming and technical articles, he has made some corrections in the margins, as it is assumed he will make these into speeches later on. This 1945 collection would be a good one for university-level study in broadcast history, media effects.
- 23.
ibid.
- 24.
ibid.
- 25.
ibid.
- 26.
ibid.
- 27.
ibid.
- 28.
ibid.
- 29.
ibid.
- 30.
ibid.
- 31.
ibid.
- 32.
ibid.
- 33.
ibid.
- 34.
ibid.
- 35.
ibid.
- 36.
ibid.
- 37.
The author, who was an “AM Top 40” disc jockey during the early 1960s, was there during this important time of re-invention of radio into a music and headline news service. There exist hundreds of books on the so-called “radio revolution” of the late 1950s through early 1960s, and it is difficult to recommend just one. There is: Rick Sklar, Rocking America, St. Martin’s Press, 1984, New York. Sklar was the founding Program Director of pioneer rock station WABC in New York, and in this book he gives a competent history that includes Alan Freed, Bill Drake and others important to the larger story. There are many more.
- 38.
De Forest, booklet compilation of Hollywood Reporter articles, 1945, Perham de Forest papers.
- 39.
ibid.
- 40.
ibid.
- 41.
De Forest speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, quoting his letter to the Chicago Tribune, October 28th, 1946, NAB, Perham de Forest papers.
- 42.
ibid.
- 43.
ibid.
- 44.
De Forest speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, March 1947, NAB, Perham de Forest papers.
- 45.
See Erik Barnouw, The Image Empire, Oxford University Press, New York, 1970, p196.
- 46.
De Forest speech to the National Association of Broadcasters, March 1947, NAB, Perham de Forest papers.
- 47.
ibid.
- 48.
ibid.
- 49.
ibid.
- 50.
De Forest letter to Senator William Knowland, April 12th, 1949, Perham de Forest papers.
- 51.
ibid.
- 52.
ibid.
- 53.
De Forest, untitled, undated speech fragment from the 1950s, Perham de Forest papers.
- 54.
ibid.
- 55.
ibid.
- 56.
ibid.
- 57.
ibid.
- 58.
ibid.
- 59.
Review of Father of Radio, New York Times Book Review, written by Samuel Lubell, September 17th, 1950, Perham de Forest papers.
- 60.
Review of Father of Radio, Los Angeles Times, written by Martin Conville, September 17th, 1950, Perham de Forest papers.
- 61.
ibid.
- 62.
Review of Father of Radio, Chicago Tribune, written by Larry Wolters, September 17th, 1950, Perham de Forest papers.
- 63.
ibid.
- 64.
The present day controversy over RF radiation from cell phones is at least a warning that these waves might cause cancer, and for decades the Federal Communications Commission, the FCC, has prohibited radio transmitters from operating close to humans, and licenses them only in locations that are far enough away from people that they are safe.
- 65.
De Forest laboratory notes, 1954, Perham de Forest papers.
- 66.
A variation of this device has been seen on San Francisco area freeways in the past year. Google has equipped Toyota Prius’s with similar but more complex and reliable devices, but with the same goal of a safer car that takes some responsibility for its safety away from the driver.
- 67.
De Forest laboratory notes, 1954, Perham de Forest papers.
- 68.
Lee de Forest, “The Problem of Color TV,” Radio-Electronics, 1950, de Forest papers, HSJ.
- 69.
De Forest U.S. patent no. 2,743,318.
- 70.
A 1949 Ad from De Forest Laboratories, 5106 Wilshire Bl, Los Angeles, CA, Perham de Forest papers.
- 71.
Los Angeles Examiner, 1957, month unknown, Perham de Forest papers.
- 72.
ibid.
- 73.
Herbert Hoover, speech at de Forest recognition dinner, April 8th, 1952, Perham de Forest papers.
- 74.
ibid.
- 75.
Letter from President Eisenhower to de Forest, March 16th, 1956, de Forest papers, HSJ.
- 76.
Author phone conversation with the office of the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce, the group in charge of the “Walk of Fame.”
- 77.
The inscription on his statuette, now in the Perham de Forest Collection.
- 78.
AMPAS technical committee meeting minutes, December 12th, 1959, Herrick Library, Beverly Hills.
- 79.
H. B. Franklin, Sound Motion Pictures, Doubleday, Doran and Co., 1929, p296.
- 80.
The major collection of de Forest material is the so-called Perham Foundation de Forest paper collection. Like the de Forest life, the entire history of Perham and the de Forest papers is one of high hopes and low moments, surrounded in myth, controversy, and litigation. It is a story with which de Forest would surely have identified. In fact, both the Perham collection of pre-Silicon valley electronics hardware and the de Forest papers were literally saved from uncertain futures several times before finally ending up at History San Jose. See the story of Perham and its influence is in the “Research Notes” section.
- 81.
From a 2010 letter from Gordon Greb to author Adams about meeting de Forest in 1959.
- 82.
Letter from de Forest to Gordon Greb, February 14th, 1959, de Forest papers, HSJ.
- 83.
Letter to Linc Cundell, Kelley papers, AWA Museum.
- 84.
ibid.
- 85.
Letter to Quincy Brackett, September 23rd, 1916, Kelley papers, AWA Museum.
- 86.
An anonymous comment, university film professor.
- 87.
Richard von Busack, San Jose Metro, February 24th, 2010.
- 88.
New York Times, July 2nd, 1961, “Lee de Forest, 87, Radio Pioneer, Dies,” obituary.
- 89.
ibid.
- 90.
ibid.
- 91.
Los Angeles Times July 2nd, 1961.
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Adams, M. (2012). Lesson and Legacy. In: Lee de Forest. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0418-7_10
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