1.
United States
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Forty-eight of the fifty states and the federal district are contiguous and located in North America between Canada and Mexico. The state of Alaska is in the northwest corner of North America, bordered by Canada to the east, the state of Hawaii is an archipelago in the mid-Pacific Ocean. The U. S. territories are scattered about the Pacific Ocean, the geography, climate and wildlife of the country are extremely diverse. At 3.8 million square miles and with over 324 million people, the United States is the worlds third- or fourth-largest country by area, third-largest by land area. It is one of the worlds most ethnically diverse and multicultural nations, paleo-Indians migrated from Asia to the North American mainland at least 15,000 years ago. European colonization began in the 16th century, the United States emerged from 13 British colonies along the East Coast. Numerous disputes between Great Britain and the following the Seven Years War led to the American Revolution. On July 4,1776, during the course of the American Revolutionary War, the war ended in 1783 with recognition of the independence of the United States by Great Britain, representing the first successful war of independence against a European power. The current constitution was adopted in 1788, after the Articles of Confederation, the first ten amendments, collectively named the Bill of Rights, were ratified in 1791 and designed to guarantee many fundamental civil liberties. During the second half of the 19th century, the American Civil War led to the end of slavery in the country. By the end of century, the United States extended into the Pacific Ocean. The Spanish–American War and World War I confirmed the status as a global military power. The end of the Cold War and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991 left the United States as the sole superpower. The U. S. is a member of the United Nations, World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Organization of American States. The United States is a developed country, with the worlds largest economy by nominal GDP. It ranks highly in several measures of performance, including average wage, human development, per capita GDP. While the U. S. economy is considered post-industrial, characterized by the dominance of services and knowledge economy, the United States is a prominent political and cultural force internationally, and a leader in scientific research and technological innovations. In 1507, the German cartographer Martin Waldseemüller produced a map on which he named the lands of the Western Hemisphere America after the Italian explorer and cartographer Amerigo Vespucci
2.
Film
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A film, also called a movie, motion picture, theatrical film or photoplay, is a series of still images which, when shown on a screen, creates the illusion of moving images due to the phi phenomenon. This optical illusion causes the audience to perceive continuous motion between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession, the process of filmmaking is both an art and an industry. The word cinema, short for cinematography, is used to refer to the industry of films. Films were originally recorded onto plastic film through a photochemical process, the adoption of CGI-based special effects led to the use of digital intermediates. Most contemporary films are now fully digital through the process of production, distribution. Films recorded in a form traditionally included an analogous optical soundtrack. It runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it and is not projected, Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them, Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful medium for educating—or indoctrinating—citizens. The visual basis of film gives it a power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialog into the language of the viewer, some have criticized the film industrys glorification of violence and its potentially negative treatment of women. The individual images that make up a film are called frames, the perception of motion is due to a psychological effect called phi phenomenon. The name film originates from the fact that film has historically been the medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for a motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photoplay. The most common term in the United States is movie, while in Europe film is preferred. Terms for the field, in general, include the big screen, the screen, the movies, and cinema. In early years, the sheet was sometimes used instead of screen. Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early plays and dances had elements common to film, scripts, sets, costumes, production, direction, actors, audiences, storyboards, much terminology later used in film theory and criticism apply, such as mise en scène. Owing to the lack of any technology for doing so, the moving images, the magic lantern, probably created by Christiaan Huygens in the 1650s, could be used to project animation, which was achieved by various types of mechanical slides
3.
Warner Bros.
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Entertainment Inc. – colloquially known as Warner Bros. or Warner Bros. It is one of the Big Six major American film studios, Warner Bros. is a member of the Motion Picture Association of America. The companys name originated from the four founding Warner brothers, Harry, Albert, Sam, Jack, the youngest, was born in London, Ontario. The three elder brothers began in the theater business, having acquired a movie projector with which they showed films in the mining towns of Pennsylvania. In the beginning, Sam and Albert Warner invested $150 to present Life of an American Fireman and they opened their first theater, the Cascade, in New Castle, Pennsylvania, in 1903. When the original building was in danger of being demolished, the modern Warner Bros. called the current building owners, the owners noted people across the country had asked them to protect it for its historical significance. In 1904, the Warners founded the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement & Supply Company, in 1912, Harry Warner hired an auditor named Paul Ashley Chase. By the time of World War I they had begun producing films, in 1918 they opened the first Warner Bros. studio on Sunset Boulevard in Hollywood. Sam and Jack produced the pictures, while Harry and Albert, along with their auditor and now controller Chase, handled finance and distribution in New York City. During World War I their first nationally syndicated film, My Four Years in Germany, on April 4,1923, with help from money loaned to Harry by his banker Motley Flint, they formally incorporated as Warner Brothers Pictures, Incorporated. The first important deal was the acquisition of the rights to Avery Hopwoods 1919 Broadway play, The Gold Diggers, however, Rin Tin Tin, a dog brought from France after World War I by an American soldier, established their reputation. Rin Tin Tin debuted in the feature Where the North Begins, the movie was so successful that Jack signed the dog to star in more films for $1,000 per week. Rin Tin Tin became the top star. Jack nicknamed him The Mortgage Lifter and the success boosted Darryl F. Zanucks career, Zanuck eventually became a top producer and between 1928 and 1933 served as Jacks right-hand man and executive producer, with responsibilities including day-to-day film production. More success came after Ernst Lubitsch was hired as head director, lubitschs film The Marriage Circle was the studios most successful film of 1924, and was on The New York Times best list for that year. Despite the success of Rin Tin Tin and Lubitsch, Warners remained a lesser studio, Sam and Jack decided to offer Broadway actor John Barrymore the lead role in Beau Brummel. The film was so successful that Harry signed Barrymore to a contract, like The Marriage Circle. By the end of 1924, Warner Bros. was arguably Hollywoods most successful independent studio, as the studio prospered, it gained backing from Wall Street, and in 1924 Goldman Sachs arranged a major loan
4.
Don Juan (1926 film)
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Don Juan is a 1926 American romantic Adventure film directed by Alan Crosland. It is the first feature-length film to utilize the Vitaphone sound-on-disc sound system with a musical score and sound effects. The film is inspired by Lord Byrons 1821 epic poem of the same name, the screenplay was written by Bess Meredyth with intertitles by Maude Fulton and Walter Anthony. Don Juan stars John Barrymore as the hand-kissing womanizer, the film has the most kisses in film history, with Barrymore kissing Mary Astor and Estelle Taylor 127 times. Ten years later, young Don Juan, a graduate of the University of Pisa, is famous as a lover and pursued by women, including the powerful Lucrezia Borgia. He escapes and kills Donati in a duel, the lovers are led to the death-tower, but while Adriana pretends suicide, he escapes, and following a series of battles, he defeats his pursuers and is united with Adriana. Don Juan premiered August 6,1926, at the Warners Theatre in New York City, george Groves, on assignment from The Vitaphone Corporation, was charged with recording the soundtrack to the film. He devised an innovative, multi-microphone technique and performed a mix of the 107-string orchestra. In doing so he became the first music mixer in film history, the film was critically acclaimed upon release, as well as a box-office success. It was produced at a cost of $789,963, the largest budget of any Warner Bros. film up to that point, the soundtrack for the film was performed by the New York Philharmonic. In 2011, the film, along with the original Vitaphone sound shorts, was released on manufactured-on-demand DVD by the Warner Archive Collection. List of early Warner Bros. talking features Don Juan at the American Film Institute Catalog Don Juan at the Internet Movie Database Don Juan at AllMovie lobby poster
5.
Sound film
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A sound film is a motion picture with synchronized sound, or sound technologically coupled to image, as opposed to a silent film. The first known exhibition of projected sound films took place in Paris in 1900. Reliable synchronization was difficult to achieve with the early sound-on-disc systems, innovations in sound-on-film led to the first commercial screening of short motion pictures using the technology, which took place in 1923. The primary steps in the commercialization of sound cinema were taken in the mid- to late 1920s, at first, the sound films which included synchronized dialogue, known as talking pictures, or talkies, were exclusively shorts. The earliest feature-length movies with recorded sound included only music and effects, the first feature film originally presented as a talkie was The Jazz Singer, released in October 1927. A major hit, it was made with Vitaphone, which was at the time the brand of sound-on-disc technology. Sound-on-film, however, would become the standard for talking pictures. By the early 1930s, the talkies were a global phenomenon, in the United States, they helped secure Hollywoods position as one of the worlds most powerful cultural/commercial centers of influence. In Europe, the new development was treated with suspicion by many filmmakers and critics, in Japan, where the popular film tradition integrated silent movie and live vocal performance, talking pictures were slow to take root. In India, sound was the element that led to the rapid expansion of the nations film industry. The idea of combining motion pictures with recorded sound is nearly as old as the concept of cinema itself. On February 27,1888, a couple of days after photographic pioneer Eadweard Muybridge gave a lecture not far from the laboratory of Thomas Edison, the two inventors privately met. No agreement was reached, but within a year Edison commissioned the development of the Kinetoscope, essentially a peep-show system, as a visual complement to his cylinder phonograph. The two devices were brought together as the Kinetophone in 1895, but individual, cabinet viewing of motion pictures was soon to be outmoded by successes in film projection and these appear to be the first publicly exhibited films with projection of both image and recorded sound. Phonorama and yet another sound-film system—Théâtroscope—were also presented at the Exposition, three major problems persisted, leading to motion pictures and sound recording largely taking separate paths for a generation. The primary issue was synchronization, pictures and sound were recorded and played back by separate devices, sufficient playback volume was also hard to achieve. Finally, there was the challenge of recording fidelity, cinematic innovators attempted to cope with the fundamental synchronization problem in a variety of ways. In 1902, Léon Gaumont demonstrated his sound-on-disc Chronophone, involving an electrical connection he had recently patented, four years later, Gaumont introduced the Elgéphone, a compressed-air amplification system based on the Auxetophone, developed by British inventors Horace Short and Charles Parsons
6.
Feature film
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A film, also called a movie, motion picture, theatrical film or photoplay, is a series of still images which, when shown on a screen, creates the illusion of moving images due to the phi phenomenon. This optical illusion causes the audience to perceive continuous motion between separate objects viewed rapidly in succession, the process of filmmaking is both an art and an industry. The word cinema, short for cinematography, is used to refer to the industry of films. Films were originally recorded onto plastic film through a photochemical process, the adoption of CGI-based special effects led to the use of digital intermediates. Most contemporary films are now fully digital through the process of production, distribution. Films recorded in a form traditionally included an analogous optical soundtrack. It runs along a portion of the film exclusively reserved for it and is not projected, Films are cultural artifacts created by specific cultures. They reflect those cultures, and, in turn, affect them, Film is considered to be an important art form, a source of popular entertainment, and a powerful medium for educating—or indoctrinating—citizens. The visual basis of film gives it a power of communication. Some films have become popular worldwide attractions by using dubbing or subtitles to translate the dialog into the language of the viewer, some have criticized the film industrys glorification of violence and its potentially negative treatment of women. The individual images that make up a film are called frames, the perception of motion is due to a psychological effect called phi phenomenon. The name film originates from the fact that film has historically been the medium for recording and displaying motion pictures. Many other terms exist for a motion picture, including picture, picture show, moving picture, photoplay. The most common term in the United States is movie, while in Europe film is preferred. Terms for the field, in general, include the big screen, the screen, the movies, and cinema. In early years, the sheet was sometimes used instead of screen. Preceding film in origin by thousands of years, early plays and dances had elements common to film, scripts, sets, costumes, production, direction, actors, audiences, storyboards, much terminology later used in film theory and criticism apply, such as mise en scène. Owing to the lack of any technology for doing so, the moving images, the magic lantern, probably created by Christiaan Huygens in the 1650s, could be used to project animation, which was achieved by various types of mechanical slides
7.
Short film
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A short film, is a cinema format, denoting any film not long enough to be considered a feature film. The term featurette originally applied to a longer than a short subject. The increasingly rare term short subject means approximately the same thing and it is an industry term which carries more of an assumption that the film is shown as part of a presentation along with a feature film. Short is an abbreviation for either term, Short films are often screened at local, national, or international film festivals and made by independent filmmakers for non profit, either with a low budget or no budget at all. They are usually funded by grants, non profit organizations. Short films are used by filmmakers to gain experience or prove their talent in order to gain funding for future films from private investors, entertainment companies. Longer and shorter films coexisted with similar popularity throughout the days of film. However, comedy films were produced in large numbers compared to lengthy features such as D. W. Griffiths The Birth of a Nation. By the 1920s, a ticket purchased a varied program including a feature and several supporting works from such as second feature, short comedy, 5–10 minute cartoon, travelogue. Short comedies were popular, and typically came in a serial or series. Even though there was no set release schedule, these series could be considered somewhat like a modern TV sitcom – lower in status than feature films. Animated cartoons came principally as short subjects, in the 1930s, the distribution system changed in many countries owing to the Great Depression. Instead of the cinema owner assembling a program of their own choice, the studios sold a package centered on a main and supporting feature, with the rise of the double feature, two reel shorts went into decline as a commercial category. Hal Roach, for example, moved Laurel and Hardy full-time into feature films after 1935, by the mid-1950s, with the rise of television, the commercial live-action short was virtually dead, The Three Stooges being the last major series of 2-reelers, ending in 1959. Short films had become a medium for student, independent and specialty work, cartoon shorts had a longer life, due in part to the implementation of lower-cost limited animation techniques, but also declined in this period. Warner Bros. one of the most prolific of the golden era, the Pink Panther was the last regular theatrical cartoon short series, having begun in 1964 and ended in 1980. By the 1960s, the market for animated shorts had largely shifted to television, a few animated shorts continue within mainstream commercial distribution. For instance, Pixar has screened a short along with each of its feature films during its theatrical run since 1995
8.
First National Pictures
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First National Pictures is a defunct American motion picture production and distribution company. It was founded in 1917 as First National Exhibitors Circuit, Inc. an association of independent theater owners in the United States, and became the countrys largest theater chain. Expanding from exhibiting movies to distributing them, the company reincorporated in 1919 as Associated First National Theatres, Inc. and Associated First National Pictures, Inc. In 1924 it expanded to become a motion picture production company as First National Pictures, Inc. in September 1928, control of First National passed to Warner Bros. into which it was completely absorbed on November 4,1929. A number of Warner Bros. films were thereafter branded First National Pictures until 1936, the First National Exhibitors Circuit was founded in 1917 by the merger of 26 of the biggest first-run cinema chains in the United States. It eventually controlled over 600 cinemas, more than 200 of them first-run houses, First National was the brainchild of Thomas L. Tally, who was reacting to the overwhelming influence of Paramount Pictures, which dominated the market. In 1912, he thought that a conglomerate of theaters throughout the nation could buy or produce, in 1917 Tally and J. D. Williams formed First National Exhibitors Circuit. The first film released through First National was the 1916 British film, between 1917 and 1918, the company made contracts with Mary Pickford and Charlie Chaplin, the first million-dollar deals in the history of film. Chaplins contract allowed him to produce his films without a set release schedule, however, the production of the feature film The Kid ran so long that the company started to complain. That patience was rewarded when The Kid became a major critical. First Nationals distribution of films by independent producers is credited with launching careers including that of Louis B, adolph Zukor of Paramount Pictures was threatened by First Nationals financial power and its control over the lucrative first-run theaters, and decided to enter the cinema business as well. With a $10 million investment, Paramount built its own chain of movie theaters after a secret plan to merge with First National failed. In the early 1920s, Paramount attempted a takeover, buying several of First Nationals member firms. Associated First National Pictures expanded from only distributing films to producing them in 1924 and changed its name to First National Pictures. It built its 62-acre studio lot in Burbank in 1926, the financial success of The Jazz Singer and The Singing Fool enabled Warner Bros. to purchase a majority interest in First National in September 1928. Warner Bros. held 42,000 shares of common stock out of 72,000 outstanding shares while Fox Pictures held 21,000 shares,12,000 shares were publicly held. Warner Bros. acquired access to First Nationals affiliated chain of theaters, Warner Bros. and First National continued to operate as separate entities. On November 4,1929, Fox sold its interest in First National to Warner Bros. for $10 million, the First National studio in Burbank became the official home of Warner Bros. –First National Pictures
9.
Phonograph record
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The groove usually starts near the periphery and ends near the center of the disc. The phonograph disc record was the medium used for music reproduction until late in the 20th century. It had co-existed with the cylinder from the late 1880s. Records retained the largest market share even when new formats such as compact cassette were mass-marketed, by the late 1980s, digital media, in the form of the compact disc, had gained a larger market share, and the vinyl record left the mainstream in 1991. The phonograph record has made a resurgence in the early 21st century –9.2 million records were sold in the U. S. in 2014. Likewise, in the UK sales have increased five-fold from 2009 to 2014, as of 2017,48 record pressing facilities remain worldwide,18 in the United States and 30 in other countries. The increased popularity of vinyl has led to the investment in new, only two producers of lacquers remains, Apollo Masters in California, USA, and MDC in Japan. Vinyl records may be scratched or warped if stored incorrectly but if they are not exposed to heat or broken. The large cover are valued by collectors and artists for the space given for visual expression, in the 2000s, these tracings were first scanned by audio engineers and digitally converted into audible sound. Phonautograms of singing and speech made by Scott in 1860 were played back as sound for the first time in 2008, along with a tuning fork tone and unintelligible snippets recorded as early as 1857, these are the earliest known recordings of sound. In 1877, Thomas Edison invented the phonograph, unlike the phonautograph, it was capable of both recording and reproducing sound. Despite the similarity of name, there is no evidence that Edisons phonograph was based on Scotts phonautograph. Edison first tried recording sound on a paper tape, with the idea of creating a telephone repeater analogous to the telegraph repeater he had been working on. The tinfoil was wrapped around a metal cylinder and a sound-vibrated stylus indented the tinfoil while the cylinder was rotated. The recording could be played back immediately, Edison also invented variations of the phonograph that used tape and disc formats. A decade later, Edison developed a greatly improved phonograph that used a wax cylinder instead of a foil sheet. This proved to be both a better-sounding and far more useful and durable device, the wax phonograph cylinder created the recorded sound market at the end of the 1880s and dominated it through the early years of the 20th century. Berliners earliest discs, first marketed in 1889, but only in Europe, were 12.5 cm in diameter, both the records and the machine were adequate only for use as a toy or curiosity, due to the limited sound quality
10.
The Jazz Singer
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The Jazz Singer is a 1927 American musical film. Directed by Alan Crosland and produced by Warner Bros, the film depicts the fictional story of Jakie Rabinowitz, a young man who defies the traditions of his devout Jewish family. After singing popular tunes in a garden he is punished by his father. Some years later, now calling himself Jack Robin, he has become a jazz singer. He attempts to build a career as an entertainer but his professional ambitions ultimately come into conflict with the demands of his home and heritage. Darryl F. Zanuck won an Honorary Academy Award for producing the film, in 1996, The Jazz Singer was selected for preservation in the National Film Registry of culturally, historically or aesthetically significant motion pictures. In 1998, the film was chosen in voting conducted by the American Film Institute as one of the best American films of all time, ranking at number ninety. Cantor Rabinowitz wants his son to carry on the family tradition. But down at the garden, thirteen-year-old Jakie Rabinowitz is performing so-called jazz tunes. Moisha Yudelson spots the boy and tells Jakies father, who drags him home, Jakie clings to his mother, Sara, as his father declares, Ill teach him better than to debase the voice God gave him. Jakie threatens, If you whip me again, Ill run away —, after the whipping, Jakie kisses his mother goodbye and, true to his word, runs away. At the Yom Kippur service, Rabinowitz mournfully tells a fellow celebrant, My son was to stand at my side and sing tonight –, as the sacred Kol Nidre is sung, Jakie sneaks back home to retrieve a picture of his loving mother. About 10 years later, Jakie has changed his name to the more assimilated Jack Robin, Jack is called up from his table at a cabaret to perform on stage. Jack wows the crowd with his energized rendition, afterward, he is introduced to the beautiful Mary Dale, a musical theater dancer. There are lots of singers, but you have a tear in your voice, she says. With her help, Jack eventually gets his big break, a part in the new musical April Follies. Back at the family home Jack left long ago, the elder Rabinowitz instructs a young student in the traditional cantorial art. Jack appears and tries to explain his point of view, and his love of modern music, as he leaves, Jack makes a prediction, I came home with a heart full of love, but you dont want to understand
11.
Sound-on-film
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Sound-on-film processes can either record an analog sound track or digital sound track, and may record the signal either optically or magnetically. Earlier technologies were sound-on-disc, meaning the films soundtrack would be on a phonograph record. The most prevalent current method of recording sound on a film print is by stereo variable-area recording. A two-channel audio signal is recorded as a pair of running parallel with the films direction of travel through the projector. The lines change area depending on the magnitude of the signal, the projector shines light from a small lamp, called an exciter, through a perpendicular slit onto the film. The image on the slice of exposed track modulates the intensity of the light, which is collected by a photosensitive element, a photocell. These LED or laser exciters are backwards-compatible with older tracks, earlier processes, used on 70 mm film prints and special presentations of 35 mm film prints, recorded sound magnetically on ferric oxide tracks bonded to the film print, outside the sprocket holes. 16 mm and Super 8 formats sometimes used a magnetic track on the camera film. Film of this form is no longer manufactured, but single-perforated film without the track or, in the case of 16 mm. Three different digital systems for 35 mm cinema release prints were introduced during the 1990s. Almost all sound formats used with motion-picture film have been sound-on-film formats, including, RCA Photophone, a variable-area format now universally used for optical analog soundtracks—since the late 1970s, usually with a Dolby encoding matrix. Tri-Ergon, the patent of this Berlin based company was bought by Fox in 1926 and this was a system developed by RCA and Disney Studios with a multi-channel soundtrack recorded on a separate strip of film from the picture
12.
Western Electric
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Western Electric Company was an American electrical engineering and manufacturing company that served as the primary supplier to AT&T from 1881 to 1996. The company was responsible for technological innovations and seminal developments in industrial management. It also served as the agent for the member companies of the Bell System. In 1856, George Shawk purchased an engineering business in Cleveland. On December 31,1869, he partners with Enos M. Barton and, later the same year. In 1872 Barton, and Gray moved the business to Clinton Street, Chicago, Illinois, in 1875, Gray sold his interests to Western Union, including the caveat that he had filed against Alexander Graham Bells patent application for the telephone. Western Electric was the first company to join in a Japanese joint venture with foreign capital, in 1899, it invested in a 54% share of the Nippon Electric Company, Ltd. Western Electrics representative in Japan was Walter Tenney Carleton, in 1901, Western Electric secretly purchased a controlling interest in a principal competitor, the Kellogg Switchboard & Supply Company, but was later forced by a lawsuit to sell. On July 24,1915, employees of the Hawthorne Works boarded the SS Eastland in downtown Chicago for a company picnic, the ship rolled over at the dock and over 800 people died. In 1920, Alice Heacock Seidel was the first of Western Electrics female employees to be given permission to stay on after she had married and this set a precedent in the company, which previously had not allowed married women in their employ. Miss Heacock had worked for Western Electric for sixteen years before her marriage, if the women at the top were permitted to remain after marriage then all women would expect the same privilege. How far and how fast the policy was expanded is shown by the fact that a few years later women were given maternity leaves with no loss of time on their service records. In 1925, ITT purchased the Bell Telephone Manufacturing Company of Brussels, Belgium, the company manufactured rotary system switching equipment under the Western Electric brand. Early on, Western Electric also managed an electrical equipment distribution business, Bell Telephone Laboratories was half-owned by Western Electric, the other half belonging to AT&T. Western Electric used various logos during its existence, starting in 1914 it used an image of AT&Ts statue Spirit of Communication. In 1915, Western Electric Manufacturing was incorporated in New York, New York, as an owned subsidiary of AT&T, under the name Western Electric Company. AT&T and Bell System companies were rumored to employ small armies of inspectors to check household line voltage levels to determine if non-leased phones were in use by consumers. Western Electric telephones were owned not by end customers but by the local Bell System telephone companies—all of which were subsidiaries of AT&T, each phone was leased from the phone company on a monthly basis by customers who generally paid for their phone as part of the recurring lease fees
13.
Lee de Forest
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Lee de Forest was an American inventor, self-described Father of Radio, and a pioneer in the development of sound-on-film recording used for motion pictures. He had over 180 patents, but also a tumultuous career—he boasted that he made, then lost and he was also involved in several major patent lawsuits, spent a substantial part of his income on legal bills, and was even tried for mail fraud. His most famous invention, in 1906, was the three-element Audion vacuum tube, Lee de Forest was born in 1873 in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the son of Anna Margaret and Henry Swift DeForest. He was a descendant of Jessé de Forest, the leader of a group of Walloon Huguenots who fled Europe in the 17th Century due to religious persecution. De Forests father was a Congregational Church minister who hoped his son would become a pastor. De Forest prepared for college by attending Mount Hermon Boys School in Mount Hermon, after completing his undergraduate studies, in September,1896 de Forest began three years of postgraduate work. However, his experiments had a tendency to blow fuses. Even after being warned to be careful, he managed to douse the lights during an important lecture by Professor Charles Hastings. One drawback to Marconis approach was his use of a coherer as a receiver, which, while providing for permanent records, was slow, insensitive. After making unsuccessful inquiries about employment with Nikola Tesla and Marconi and his first job after leaving Yale was with the Western Electric Companys telephone lab in Chicago, Illinois. While there he developed his first receiver, which was based on findings by two German scientists, Drs. A. Neugschwender and Emil Aschkinass and their original design consisted of a mirror in which a narrow, moistened slit had been cut through the silvered back. Attaching a battery and telephone receiver, they could hear sound changes in response to radio signal impulses, De Forest, along with Ed Smythe, a co-worker who provided financial and technical help, developed variations they called responders. With radio research his main priority, de Forest next took a teaching position at the Lewis Institute. By 1900, using a transmitter and his responder receiver. Professor Clarence Freeman of the Armour Institute became interested in de Forests work, Marconi had already made arrangements to provide reports for the Associated Press, which he had successfully done for the 1899 contest. De Forest contracted to do the same for the smaller Publishers Press Association, the race effort turned out to be an almost total failure. The Freeman transmitter broke down — in a fit of rage, none of these companies had effective tuning for their transmitters, so only one could transmit at a time without causing mutual interference. De Forest ruefully noted that under conditions the only successful wireless communication was done by visual semaphore wig-wag flags
14.
Audion
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The Audion was an electronic amplifying vacuum tube invented by American electrical engineer Lee De Forest in 1906. It was the first triode, consisting of an evacuated glass tube containing three electrodes, a heated filament, a grid, and a plate. These were the first modern hard vacuum triodes, when wireless signals were applied to the wire wrapped around the outside of the glass, they caused disturbances in the current which produced sounds in the headphones. This was a significant development as existing commercial systems were heavily protected by patents. De Forest and everybody else at the time greatly underestimated the potential of his original device, De Forest was granted a patent for his early two-electrode version of the Audion on November 13,1906, but the triode version was patented in 1908. De Forest was famous for saying that he didnt know why it worked and he always referred to the vacuum triodes developed by other researchers as Oscillaudions, although there is no evidence that he had any significant input to their development. It is true that after the invention of the vacuum triode in 1913. However, although he described these devices as using Audions, they actually used high-vacuum triodes. In 1914, Columbia University student Edwin Howard Armstrong worked with professor John Harold Morecroft to document the electrical principles of the Audion, Armstrong published his explanation of the Audion in Electrical World in December 1914, complete with circuit diagrams and oscilloscope graphs. A combination of the two papers was reprinted in other such as the Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences. When Armstrong and De Forest later faced each other in a dispute over the regeneration patent, the Audions sometimes worked extremely well, at other times they would barely work at all. As well as De Forest himself, numerous researchers had tried to find ways to improve the reliability of the device by stabilizing the partial vacuum. Much of the research led to the development of true vacuum tubes was carried out by Irving Langmuir in the General Electric research laboratories. However, this only worked if the gas used was meticulously scrubbed of all traces of oxygen and he then applied the same approach to producing a rectifier for the newly developed Coolidge X-ray tubes. His rectifiers were called Kenotrons from the Greek keno and tron and he then turned his attention to the Audion tube, again suspecting that its notoriously unpredictable behaviour might be tamed with more care in the manufacturing process. However he took an unorthodox approach. Instead of trying to stabilize the partial vacuum, he wondered if it was possible to make the Audion function with the vacuum of a Kenotron. To distinguish his device from the Audion he named it the Pliotron, essentially, he referred to all his vacuum tube designs as Kenotrons, the Pliotron basically being a specialized type of Kenotron
15.
Public address system
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Simple PA systems are often used in small venues such as school auditoriums, churches, and small bars. Intercom systems, installed in buildings, have both speakers throughout a building, and microphones in many rooms allowing the occupants to respond to announcements. Sound reinforcement systems and PA systems may use some similar components, Sound reinforcement systems are for live music or performance, whereas PA systems are primarily for reproduction of speech. A short time later the Automatic Enunciator Company was established in Chicago in order to market the new device, in August 1912 a large outdoor installation was made at a water carnival held in Chicago by the Associated Yacht and Power Boat Clubs of America. Seventy-two loudspeakers were strung in pairs at intervals along the docks. The system was used to announce race reports and descriptions, carry a series of speeches about The Chicago Plan, and provide music between races. Four years later, in 1915, they built a dynamic loudspeaker with a 1-inch voice coil, a 3-inch corrugated diaphragm, the electromagnet created a flux field of approximately 11,000 G. Their first experiment used a carbon microphone, when the 12 V battery was connected to the system, they experienced one of the first examples of acoustic feedback. They then placed the loudspeaker on the roof, and claims say that the amplified human voice could be heard 1 mile away. Jensen and Pridham refined the system and connected a phonograph to the loudspeaker to be able to broadcast recorded music and this demonstration was official presentation of the working system, and approximately 100,000 people gathered to hear Christmas music and speeches with absolute distinctness. The first outside broadcast was one week later, again supervised by Jensen. Jensen oversaw the governor using the microphone while Pridham operated the loudspeaker, the following year, Jensen and Pridham applied for a patent for what they called their Sound Magnifying Phonograph. Over the next two years developed their first valve amplifier. In 1919 this was standardized as a 3-stage 25 watt amplifier, wilsons speech was part of his nationwide tour to promote the establishment of the League of Nations. It was held on September 9,1919 at City Stadium, as with the San Francisco installation, Jensen supervised the microphone and Pridham the loudspeakers. Wilson spoke into two large horns mounted on his platform which channelled his voice into the microphone, similar systems were used in the following years by Warren G. Harding and Franklin D. Roosevelt. By the early 1920s, Marconi had established a department dedicated to public address, in 1925, George V used such a system at the British Empire Exhibition, addressing 90,000 via six long-range loudspeakers. This public use of loudspeakers brought attention to the possibilities of such technology, the 1925 Royal Air Force Pageant at Hendon Aerodrome used a Marconi system to allow the announcer to address the crowds, as well as amplify the band
16.
Microphone
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A microphone, colloquially nicknamed mic or mike, is a transducer that converts sound into an electrical signal. Several different types of microphone are in use, which employ different methods to convert the air pressure variations of a wave to an electrical signal. Microphones typically need to be connected to a preamplifier before the signal can be recorded or reproduced, in order to speak to larger groups of people, a need arose to increase the volume of the human voice. The earliest devices used to achieve this were acoustic megaphones, some of the first examples, from fifth century BC Greece, were theater masks with horn-shaped mouth openings that acoustically amplified the voice of actors in amphitheatres. In 1665, the English physicist Robert Hooke was the first to experiment with an other than air with the invention of the lovers telephone made of stretched wire with a cup attached at each end. German inventor Johann Philipp Reis designed an early sound transmitter that used a strip attached to a vibrating membrane that would produce intermittent current. Better results were achieved with the transmitter design in Scottish-American Alexander Graham Bells telephone of 1876 – the diaphragm was attached to a conductive rod in an acid solution. These systems, however, gave a poor sound quality. The first microphone that enabled proper voice telephony was the carbon microphone and this was independently developed by David Edward Hughes in England and Emile Berliner and Thomas Edison in the US. Although Edison was awarded the first patent in mid-1877, Hughes had demonstrated his working device in front of many witnesses some years earlier, the carbon microphone is the direct prototype of todays microphones and was critical in the development of telephony, broadcasting and the recording industries. Thomas Edison refined the carbon microphone into his carbon-button transmitter of 1886 and this microphone was employed at the first ever radio broadcast, a performance at the New York Metropolitan Opera House in 1910. In 1916, E. C. Wente of Western Electric developed the next breakthrough with the first condenser microphone, in 1923, the first practical moving coil microphone was built. The Marconi Skykes or magnetophon, developed by Captain H. J. Round, was the standard for BBC studios in London and this was improved in 1930 by Alan Blumlein and Herbert Holman who released the HB1A and was the best standard of the day. Also in 1923, the microphone was introduced, another electromagnetic type, believed to have been developed by Harry F. Olson. Over the years these microphones were developed by companies, most notably RCA that made large advancements in pattern control. With television and film technology booming there was demand for high fidelity microphones, electro-Voice responded with their Academy Award-winning shotgun microphone in 1963. During the second half of 20th century development advanced quickly with the Shure Brothers bringing out the SM58, digital was pioneered by Milab in 1999 with the DM-1001. The latest research developments include the use of optics, lasers and interferometers
17.
Phonofilm
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Phonofilm is an optical sound-on-film system developed by inventors Lee de Forest and Theodore Case in the 1920s. In 1919 and 1920, Lee De Forest, inventor of the tube, filed his first patents on a sound-on-film process, DeForest Phonofilm. These parallel lines photographically recorded electrical waveforms from a microphone, which were translated back into sound waves when the movie was projected. The Phonofilm system, which recorded synchronized sound directly onto film, was used to record vaudeville acts, musical numbers, political speeches, the films of DeForest were short films made primarily as demonstrations to try to interest major studios in Phonofilm. Some of the films, such as Flying Jenny Airplane, Barking Dog, smith and Roosevelt were filmed during the 1924 Democratic National Convention, held June 24 to July 9 at Madison Square Garden in New York City. Coolidge became the first U. S, President to appear in a sound motion picture when DeForest filmed him at the White House on 11 August 1924. In November 1922, De Forest founded the De Forest Phonofilm Corporation with studios at 314 East 48th Street in New York City, however, DeForest was unable to interest any of the major Hollywood movie studios in his invention. From October 1921 to September 1922, DeForest lived in Berlin, meeting with the Tri-Ergon developers and he announced to the press in April 1922 that he would soon have a workable sound-on-film system. On 12 March 1923, DeForest presented a demonstration of Phonofilm to the press, on 12 April 1923, DeForest gave a private demonstration of the process to electrical engineers at the Engineering Society Buildings Auditorium at 33 West 39th Street in New York City. On 15 April 1923, DeForest premiered 18 short films made in Phonofilm — including vaudeville acts, musical performers, opera, the Rivolis music director Hugo Riesenfeld co-hosted the presentation. Movie theater chains at the time, De Forests decision to film primarily short films, not feature films limited the appeal of his process. All or part of the Paramount Pictures features Bella Donna and The Covered Wagon were filmed with Phonofilm as an experiment, however, the Phonofilm versions were only shown at the premiere engagements, also at the Rivoli. Siegfried, the first part of the Fritz Lang film Die Nibelungen had a Phonofilm soundtrack, one of the few two-reel films made by DeForest in the Phonofilm process was Loves Old Sweet Song, starring Louis Wolheim, Donald Gallaher, and the 20-year-old Una Merkel. DeForest kept to one-reel films because he was unable to solve the problem of reel changes—and the disruption in sound which would occur—when a projectionist in a movie theater changed reels. Max Fleischer and Dave Fleischer used the Phonofilm process for their Song Car-Tunes series of cartoons—all featuring the Follow the Bouncing Ball gimmick—starting in May 1924, of the 36 titles in the Song Car-Tunes series,19 used Phonofilm. Red Seal Pictures and DeForest Phonofilm filed for bankruptcy in September 1926, DeForest also worked with Theodore Case, using Cases patents to make the Phonofilm system workable. However, the two men had an out, shortly after DeForest filed suit in June 1923 against Freeman Harrison Owens. Case later went to movie mogul William Fox of Fox Film Corporation, who bought Cases patents, the American rights to the German Tri-Ergon patents, Cases falling out with DeForest was due to DeForest taking full credit for the work of Case and Earl I
18.
Bell Labs
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Nokia Bell Labs is an American research and scientific development company, owned by Finnish company Nokia. Its headquarters are located in Murray Hill, New Jersey, in addition to laboratories around the rest of the United States. The historic laboratory originated in the late 19th century as the Volta Laboratory, Bell Labs was also at one time a division of the American Telephone & Telegraph Company, half-owned through its Western Electric manufacturing subsidiary. Eight Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work completed at Bell Laboratories, in 1880, the French government awarded Alexander Graham Bell the Volta Prize of 50,000 francs, approximately US$10,000 at that time for the invention of the telephone. Bell used the award to fund the Volta Laboratory in Washington, D. C. in collaboration with Sumner Tainter, the laboratory is also variously known as the Volta Bureau, the Bell Carriage House, the Bell Laboratory and the Volta Laboratory. The laboratory focused on the analysis, recording, and transmission of sound, Bell used his considerable profits from the laboratory for further research and education to permit the diffusion of knowledge relating to the deaf. This resulted in the founding of the Volta Bureau c,1887, located at Bells fathers house at 1527 35th Street in Washington, D. C. where its carriage house became their headquarters in 1889. In 1893, Bell constructed a new building, close by at 1537 35th St. specifically to house the lab, the building was declared a National Historic Landmark in 1972. In 1884, the American Bell Telephone Company created the Mechanical Department from the Electrical, the first president of research was Frank B. Jewett, who stayed there until 1940, ownership of Bell Laboratories was evenly split between AT&T and the Western Electric Company. Its principal work was to plan, design, and support the equipment that Western Electric built for Bell System operating companies and this included everything from telephones, telephone exchange switches, and transmission equipment. Bell Labs also carried out consulting work for the Bell Telephone Company, a few workers were assigned to basic research, and this attracted much attention, especially since they produced several Nobel Prize winners. Until the 1940s, the principal locations were in and around the Bell Labs Building in New York City. Of these, Murray Hill and Crawford Hill remain in existence, the largest grouping of people in the company was in Illinois, at Naperville-Lisle, in the Chicago area, which had the largest concentration of employees prior to 2001. Since 2001, many of the locations have been scaled down or closed. The Holmdel site, a 1.9 million square foot structure set on 473 acres, was closed in 2007, the mirrored-glass building was designed by Eero Saarinen. In August 2013, Somerset Development bought the building, intending to redevelop it into a commercial and residential project. The prospects of success are clouded by the difficulty of readapting Saarinens design and by the current glut of aging, eight Nobel Prizes have been awarded for work completed at Bell Laboratories
19.
Opera
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Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. In traditional opera, singers do two types of singing, recitative, a style and arias, a more melodic style. Opera incorporates many of the elements of theatre, such as acting, scenery. The performance is given in an opera house, accompanied by an orchestra or smaller musical ensemble. Opera is a key part of the Western classical music tradition, in the 18th century, Italian opera continued to dominate most of Europe, attracting foreign composers such as George Frideric Handel. Opera seria was the most prestigious form of Italian opera, until Christoph Willibald Gluck reacted against its artificiality with his operas in the 1760s. The first third of the 19th century saw the point of the bel canto style, with Gioachino Rossini, Gaetano Donizetti. It also saw the advent of Grand Opera typified by the works of Auber and Meyerbeer, the mid-to-late 19th century was a golden age of opera, led and dominated by Richard Wagner in Germany and Giuseppe Verdi in Italy. The popularity of opera continued through the era in Italy and contemporary French opera through to Giacomo Puccini. During the 19th century, parallel operatic traditions emerged in central and eastern Europe, the 20th century saw many experiments with modern styles, such as atonality and serialism, Neoclassicism, and Minimalism. With the rise of recording technology, singers such as Enrico Caruso, since the invention of radio and television, operas were also performed on these mediums. Beginning in 2006, a number of opera houses began to present live high-definition video transmissions of their performances in cinemas all over the world. In 2009, an opera company offered a download of a complete performance. The words of an opera are known as the libretto, some composers, notably Wagner, have written their own libretti, others have worked in close collaboration with their librettists, e. g. Mozart with Lorenzo Da Ponte. Vocal duets, trios and other ensembles often occur, and choruses are used to comment on the action, in some forms of opera, such as singspiel, opéra comique, operetta, and semi-opera, the recitative is mostly replaced by spoken dialogue. Melodic or semi-melodic passages occurring in the midst of, or instead of, the terminology of the various kinds of operatic voices is described in detail below. Over the 18th century, arias were accompanied by the orchestra. Subsequent composers have tended to follow Wagners example, though some, the changing role of the orchestra in opera is described in more detail below
20.
Will H. Hays
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William Will Harrison Hays, Sr. was a United States politician, chairman of the Republican National Committee, U. S. Postmaster General, and, from 1922–1945, the first chairman of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America, Hays was born in Sullivan, Indiana, on November 5,1879, and attended Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana. He was the manager of Warren G. Hardings successful campaign for the Presidency of the United States in the 1920 election and was subsequently appointed Postmaster General, while serving in the Harding Administration, he became peripherally involved in the Teapot Dome scandal. Oilman Harry Ford Sinclair devised a scheme in which twenty five cents was diverted from the sale of every barrel of oil sold from the oil field leases that were the focus of the Teapot Dome scandal. Sinclair testified that he loaned Will H. Hays, then-chairman of the Republican National Committee, $185,000 worth of Liberty Bonds, Sinclair also gave Hays $75,000 as an outright gift to the Committee. At the time, Hays was attempting to pay off the 1920 Republican campaign debt, Hays later approached a number of wealthy men and told them that if they would contribute to pay down the Committees debt, he would reimburse them for their contributions with Liberty Bonds. When asked how much money Sinclair had contributed to the Republican Party, in 1928, after more details of Sinclairs scheme had emerged, Hays was called to testify again. Hays then told the story of Sinclairs contribution, including the donation of $185,000 in Liberty Bonds. He stated that he had not mentioned the bonds in his earlier testimony because the Committee had not asked about any bonds, Hays resigned his cabinet position on January 14,1922, to become President of the Motion Picture Producers and Distributors of America shortly after the organizations founding. He began his new job, at a $35,360 annual salary, there was speculation that he would be paid between $100,000 and $150,000 a year. In his new position in Hollywood, Hays main roles were to persuade individual state censor boards not to ban specific films outright, Hays attempted to reduce studio costs by advising individual studios on how to produce movies to reduce the likelihood that the film would be cut. Each board kept its standards secret, so Hays was forced to intuit what would or would not be permitted by each board. At first he applied what he called The Formula but it was not particularly successful, from that he developed a set of guidelines he called The Donts, in general his efforts at pre-release self-censorship were unsuccessful in quieting calls for federal censorship. For several months in 1929, Martin Quigley, Joseph Breen, Father FitzGeorge Dinneen S. J. and Father Wilfred Parsons discussed the desirability of a new and more stringent code of behavior for the movies. With the blessing of Cardinal George W. Mundelein of Chicago, Father Lord authored the code, which became known as The Production Code, The Code. It was presented to Will Hays in 1930 who said, My eyes nearly popped out when I read it and this was the very thing I had been looking for. The studio heads were enthusiastic and they agreed to make The Code the rule of the industry. From 1930 to 1934, the Production Code was only effective in fighting back calls for federal censorship
21.
Adolph Zukor
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Adolph Zukor was an American film mogul and founder of Paramount Pictures. Zukor was born to a Jewish family in Ricse, Hungary, which was then a part of the Austro-Hungarian empire. In 1889, at the age of 16, he promised Mella Baumoel, a girl almost 4 years older, that he would send for her one day and they would be married, he emigrated to the United States. Mella arrived in the U. S. too late to wed him, they never spoke again, like most immigrants, he began modestly. When he first landed in New York, he stayed with his family, a friend got him a job as an apprentice at a furrier. Zukor stayed there for two years, when he left to become a contract worker, sewing fur pieces and selling them himself, he was nineteen years old and an accomplished designer. He was young and adventuresome, and the 1893 Columbian Exposition in Chicago drew him to the Midwest, there he started a fur business. In the second season of operation, Zukors Novelty Fur Company expanded to 25 men, historian Neal Gabler wrote, one of the stubborn fallacies of movie history is that the men who created the film industry were all impoverished young vulgarians. Zukor clearly didnt fit this profile, by 1903, he already looked and lived like a wealthy young burgher, and he certainly earned the income of one. He had an apartment at 111th Street and Seventh Avenue in New York Citys wealthy German-Jewish section. In 1918, he moved to New City, Rockland County, New York, Abraham had already built a sizable house, a nine-hole golf course and a swimming pool on this property. Two years later, Zukor bought an additional 500 acres, built a house, guest house, movie theater, locker room, greenhouses, garages, staff quarters. Tillinghast to build an 18-hole championship golf course, today, Zukors estate is the private country club Paramount Country Club. He became involved in the picture industry when in 1903 his cousin. Mitchell Mark needed investors to expand his chain of theaters that began in Buffalo. The arcade salon, the Automatic Vaudeville Company on 14th Street in New York City was to feature Thomas Edisons marvels, phonographs, electric lights, Zukor not only gave Goldstein the money but insisted on forming a partnership to open another one. Another partner in the venture was Marcus Loew, the following year he obtained the financial backing of the Frohman brothers, the powerful New York City theatre impresarios. Their primary goal was to bring noted stage actors to the screen and he purchased an armory on 26th Street in Manhattan and converted it into Chelsea Studios, a movie studio that is still used today
22.
Sam Warner
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Samuel Louis Sam Warner was a Polish-born Jewish American film producer who was the co-founder and chief executive officer of Warner Bros. He established the studio along with his brothers Harry, Albert, Sam Warner is credited with procuring the technology that enabled Warner Bros. to produce the film industrys first feature-length talking picture, The Jazz Singer. He died in 1927, the day before the films enormously successful premiere and he had ten siblings, sisters Cecilia, Anna, Rose, Fannie and Sadie. His brothers were Hirsch Morris, David, Abraham, later known as Al or Abe), Jacob, later known as Jack), the family immigrated to Baltimore, Maryland in October 1889 on the steamship Hermann from Bremen, Germany. Their father had preceded them, immigrating to Baltimore in 1888 and he changed the family name to Warner, which was used thereafter. As in many Jewish immigrant families, some of the children gradually acquired anglicized versions of their Yiddish-sounding names, in Baltimore, Benjamin Warner struggled to make enough money to provide for his growing family. Following the advice of a friend, Benjamin relocated the family to Canada, after two arduous years in Canada, Benjamin and his family returned to Baltimore. In 1896, the relocated to Youngstown, Ohio, following the lead of Harry Warner. Benjamin worked with his son Harry in the repair shop until he secured a loan to open a meat counter. As a child, Sam Warner found himself trying to work through a range of various odd jobs. Samuel Warner was the first member of his family to move into the entertainment industry, in the early 1900s, he formed a business partnership with another Youngstown resident and took over the citys Old Grand Opera House, which he used as a venue for cheap vaudeville and photoplays. The venture failed after one summer, Warner then secured a job as a projectionist at Idora Park, a local amusement park. He persuaded the family of the new possibilities and negotiated the purchase of a Model B Kinetoscope from a projectionist who was down on his luck. Warners interest in film came after seeing Thomas Edisons The Great Train Robbery while working as an employee at Cedar Point Pleasure Resort in Sandusky, in 1905, Harry Warner agreed to join his two brothers and sold his Youngstown bicycle shop. The Cascade Movie Palace was so successful that the brothers were able to purchase a theater in New Castle. This makeshift theatre, called the Bijou, was furnished with chairs borrowed from a local undertaker and they maintained the theater until moving into film distribution in 1907. That year, the Warner brothers established the Pittsburgh-based Duquesne Amusement Company, Harry then sent Sam Warner to New York to purchase, and ship, films for their Pittsburgh exchange company, while he and Albert remained in Pittsburgh to run the business. Their business, however, proved lucrative until the advent of Thomas Edisons Motion Picture Patents Company, which charged distributors exorbitant fees
23.
Harry Warner
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Harry Morris Warner was a Polish-born American studio executive, one of the founders of Warner Bros. and a major contributor to the development of the film industry. Along with his three brothers Warner played a role in the film business and played a key role in establishing Warner Bros. Pictures, Inc, serving as the president until 1956. Warner was born Hirsch Moses Wonsal or Wonskolaser to a family of Jewish Poles from the village of Krasnosielc, the village was a short distance from Warsaw in the part of Poland that had been subjugated to the Russian Empire following the 18th-century partitions of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. He was the son of Benjamin Wonsal, a born in Krasnosielc. His given name was Moses but he was called Hirsch in the United States, in October 1889, he came to Baltimore, Maryland with his mother and siblings on the steamship Hermann from Bremen, Germany. Their father had preceded them, immigrating to Baltimore in 1883 or 1885 in order to pursue his trade in shoes and it was at that time that he changed the family name to Warner which was used thereafter. As in many Jewish immigrant families, some of the children gradually acquired anglicized versions of their Yiddish-sounding names, Hirsch became Harry, and his middle name Morris was likely a version of Moses. In Baltimore, the money Benjamin Warner earned in the repair business was not enough to provide for his growing household. He and Pearl had another daughter, Fannie, not long after they arrived, Benjamin moved the family to Canada, inspired by a friends advice that he could make an excellent living bartering tin wares with trappers in exchange for furs. Sons Jacob and David Warner were born in London, Ontario, after two arduous years in Canada, the Warners returned to Baltimore. Two more children, Sadie and Milton, were added to the household there, in 1896, the family relocated to Youngstown, Ohio, following the lead of Harry, who had established a shoe repair shop in the heart of the emerging industrial town. Benjamin worked with Harry in the repair shop until he secured a loan to open a meat counter. In 1899, Harry opened a shop in Youngstown, Ohio with his brother. Eventually, Harry and Abe also opened a bowling alley together, the bowling alley failed and closed shortly after it opened. Harry eventually accepted an offer to become a salesman for a local meat franchise, however, by his nineteenth birthday, Harry was reduced to living in his parents crowded household. In 1903, Harrys brothers, Abe and Sam, began to exhibit The Great Train Robbery at carnivals across Ohio, in 1905, Harry sold his bicycle shop and joined his brothers in their fledgling film business. With the money Harry made from selling the shop, the three brothers were able to purchase a building in New Castle, Pennsylvania
24.
Rudolph Valentino
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He was an early pop icon, a sex symbol of the 1920s, who was known as the Latin lover or simply as Valentino. He had applied for American citizenship shortly before his death at age 31. Valentino was born Rodolfo Pietro Filiberto Raffaello Guglielmi in Castellaneta, Apulia and his mother, Marie Berta Gabrielle, was French, born in Lure in Franche-Comté. His father, Giovanni Antonio Giuseppe Fedele Guglielmi di Valentina dAntonguella, was Italian, Valentino had an older brother, Alberto, a younger sister, Maria, and an older sister, Beatrice, who had died in infancy. As a child, Rodolfo was indulged because of his exceptional looks and his mother coddled him, while his father disapproved of him. He did poorly in school and was enrolled in agricultural school at Genoa. After living in Paris in 1912, he returned to Italy. Unable to secure employment, he departed for the United States in 1913 and he was processed at Ellis Island at age 18 on December 23,1913. Arriving in New York City, Valentino soon ran out of money and he supported himself with odd jobs such as bussing tables in restaurants and gardening. Eventually, he work as a taxi dancer at Maxims Restaurant-Cabaret. Among the other dancers at Maxims were several displaced members of European nobility, Valentino eventually befriended Chilean heiress Blanca de Saulles, who was unhappily married to prominent businessman John de Saulles, with whom she had a son. Following the divorce, John de Saulles reportedly used his connections to have Valentino arrested, along with a Mrs. Thyme. The evidence was flimsy at best, and after a few days in jail, following the well publicized trial and subsequent scandal, Valentino could not find employment. Shortly after the trial, Blanca de Saulles fatally shot her ex-husband during a dispute over their son. Fearful of being called in as a witness in another trial, Valentino left town. In 1917, Valentino joined a company that traveled to Utah. He then joined an Al Jolson production of Robinson Crusoe, Jr. which was travelling to Los Angeles, by fall, he was in San Francisco with a bit part in a theatrical production of Nobody Home. While in town, Valentino met actor Norman Kerry, who convinced him to try a career in cinema, Valentino and Kerry moved back to Los Angeles and became roommates at the Alexandria Hotel
25.
Al Jolson
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Al Jolson was an American singer, film actor, and comedian. At the peak of his career, he was dubbed The Worlds Greatest Entertainer and his performing style was brash and extroverted, and he popularized a large number of songs that benefited from his shamelessly sentimental, melodramatic approach. Numerous well-known singers were influenced by his music, including Bing Crosby, David Bowie, Bob Dylan, Rod Stewart, Dylan once referred to him as somebody whose life I can feel. Broadway critic Gilbert Seldes compared him to the Greek god Pan, claiming that Jolson represented the concentration of our national health, in the 1930s, Jolson was Americas most famous and highest-paid entertainer. Between 1911 and 1928, Jolson had nine sell-out Winter Garden shows in a row, more than 80 hit records, and 16 national and international tours. Although he is best remembered today as the star of the first talking picture, The Jazz Singer, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he was the first star to entertain troops overseas during World War II. After a period of inactivity, his stardom returned with The Jolson Story, for which Larry Parks played Jolson, the formula was repeated in a sequel, Jolson Sings Again. In 1950, he became the first star to entertain GIs on active service in the Korean War. He died just weeks after returning to the U. S. partly owing to the exertion of performing. Defense Secretary George Marshall posthumously awarded him the Medal of Merit, According to the St. James Encyclopedia of Popular Culture, Jolson was to jazz, blues, and ragtime what Elvis Presley was to rock n roll. Being the first popular singer to make a spectacular event out of singing a song and his specialty was performing on stage runways extending out into the audience. According to music historian Larry Stempel, No one had heard anything quite like it before on Broadway, author Stephen Banfield agreed, writing that Jolsons style was arguably the single most important factor in defining the modern musical. Jolson also enjoyed performing in blackface makeup, a convention since the mid-19th century. With his unique and dynamic style of singing black music, such as jazz and blues, as early as 1911, he became known for fighting against black discrimination on Broadway. Al Jolson was born as Asa Yoelson in the Jewish village of Srednik now known as Seredžius, near Kaunas in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire. He was the fifth and youngest child of Moses Rubin Yoelson and Nechama Naomi Cantor, his four siblings were Rose, Etta, another sister who died in infancy, and Hirsch. Jolson claimed not to know when he was born, and later chose to claim he was born on May 26,1886. His one-time sister-in-law, Margaret Weatherwax, claimed Jolson was the age as their father, Ralph
26.
Henry Halstead
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Henry Halstead was a U. S. bandleader. Henry Halstead had from 15 to 20 bandmembers at any given time, Halsteads orchestra appeared in numerous short subjects on the screen and has made over 100 phonograph records, mainly with Victor Records. In addition, Halstead appeared in films released by RKO Radio. Following their rise to fame over the air and in the grill rooms on the West Coast, Henry Halstead. During his career as the West Coasts premier dance orchestra Hank Halsteads boys played for all the movie people at their private entertainments. Hollywood actor Lew Ayres was discovered in the Henry Halstead band in 1927, Ayres said I was a member of Henry Halsteads orchestra in 1927 at the Mission Beach Ballroom, San Diego, Calif. summer. My instruments were tenor banjo, long-neck banjo and guitar, after a hiatus, I rejoined Mr. Halstead with a new group, including Phil Harris, on New Years Eve the same year for the opening night of the Beverly Wilshire Hotel. Henry Halstead is given credit for making the first Hollywood Vitaphone movie short with Warner Brothers in 1927 called Carnival Night in Paris where Lew Ayres was discovered playing banjo, the three music selections for the Vitaphone production where listed as follows,1. Halstead was on the cover of Billboard issue of July 27,1935 at that time known as Henry Hank Halstead and His Cocoanut Grove Orchestra playing at the Hotel-Park Central, New York. Phil Harris played drums and Red Nichols played trumpet as they were members of Henry Halsteads band in the 1920s, cliff Arquette an actor, comedian, was also a night club pianist, and joined the Henry Halstead Orchestra in 1923. Halstead recorded for Victor Records, and broadcast on all major networks, such as Columbia, National. Halstead led his band and played violin, the original Halstead violin still exists and has dozens of band member signatures on the violin. Henry was considered one of the best young band leaders and gave his dance patrons plenty of entertainment and his music maintained excellent rhythm and a crowded floor throughout the night stood testimony that he was playing good dance music. Henry Halstead was born November 16,1897 in El Paso, Texas, as a young boy, Halstead learned to play violin. After studying the violin for 10 years, Hank Halstead turned professional when 19 playing clubs, in 1919, Henry Halstead played violin with 2 other men that went on to become famous Big Band Leaders, Abe Lyman and Gus Arnheim. The 3 young men played in a band together at the Sunset Inn in Santa Monica, Abe Lyman played drums and Gus Arnheim played piano. Roy Fox, not well known in America but later a ranking bandmaster in England, even early on Halstead dressed the part, a tuxedo was a must and he must have worn out a few of them over the next 20 years. Balance of harmony is the secret, careful selection of instruments and musicians are next in importance, but unless harmony is perfectly balanced that soft, dreamy effect so necessary in the modern fox trot is lost
27.
Record press
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A record press is a machine for manufacturing vinyl records. It is essentially a hydraulic press fitted with thin nickel stampers which are negative impressions of a master disc, labels and a pre-heated vinyl patty are placed in a heated mold cavity. Two stampers are used, one for each of side of the disc, the record press closes under a pressure of about 150 tons. The process of compression molding forces the hot vinyl to fill the grooves in the stampers, in the mid 1960s Emory Cook developed a system of record forming wherein the mold pressure was replaced by a vacuum. In this technique the mold cavity was evacuated and vinyl was introduced in micro-particle form, the particles were then flash-fused instantaneously at a high temperature forming a coherent solid. Cook called this disc manufacturing technology microfusion, a small pressing plant in Hollywood also employed a similar system which they maintained fused the particles more evenly throughout the disc thickness calling their product polymax. Both claimed the resultant disc grooves exhibited less surface noise and greater resistance to deformation from stylus tip inertia than convention pressure molded vinyl discs
28.
Movie projector
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A movie projector is an opto-mechanical device for displaying motion picture film by projecting it onto a screen. Most of the optical and mechanical elements, except for the illumination, the first movie projector was the Zoopraxiscope, invented by British photographer Eadweard Muybridge in 1879. The zoopraxiscope projected images from rotating glass disks in rapid succession to give the impression of motion, the stop-motion images were initially painted onto the glass, as silhouettes. A second series of discs, made in 1892–94, used outline drawings printed onto the discs photographically, a more sophisticated movie projector was invented by Frenchman Louis Le Prince while working in Leeds. In 1888 Le Prince took out a patent for a 16-lens device that combined a motion picture camera with a projector, in 1888, he used an updated version of his camera to film the first ever motion picture, the Roundhay Garden Scene. The pictures were exhibited in Hunslet. The Lumière brothers invented the first successful movie projector and they made their first film, Sortie de lusine Lumière de Lyon, in 1894, which was publicly screened at LEden, La Ciotat a year later. The first commercial, public screening of cinematographic films happened in Paris on 28 December 1895, the cinematograph was also exhibited at the Paris Exhibition of 1900. At the Exhibition, films made by the Lumière Brothers were projected onto a screen measuring 16 by 21 meters. In 1999, digital projectors were being tried out in some movie theatres. These early projectors played the movie stored on a server and played back through the projector, due to their relatively low resolution, the images at the time showed pixelization blocks in some scenes, much like images on early widescreen televisions. By 2006, the advent of much higher 4K resolution digital projection had removed any traces of pixelization, the systems became more compact than the larger machines of four years earlier. By 2009, movie theatres started replacing the film projectors with digital projectors, in 2013, it was estimated that 92% of movie theatres in the United States had converted to digital, with 8% still playing film. In 2015, numerous popular filmmakers—including Quentin Tarantino and Christopher Nolan—lobbied large studios to commit to purchase an amount of 35 mm film from Kodak. The decision ensured that Kodaks 35mm film production would continue for several years, nowadays film projectors are considered obsolete as high-resolution digital projectors offer many advantages over traditional film units. For example, digital projectors contain no moving parts except fans, can be operated remotely and they also allow for much easier, less expensive, and more reliable storage and distribution of content, including the ability to display live broadcasts. According to the theory of the phi phenomenon, the brain constitutes an experience of apparent movement when presented with a sequence of near-identical still images. Persistence of vision should be compared with the phenomena of beta movement
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Phonograph
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The phonograph is a device invented in 1877 for the mechanical recording and reproduction of sound. In its later forms it is called a gramophone. To recreate the sound, the surface is rotated while a playback stylus traces the groove and is therefore vibrated by it. In later electric phonographs, the motions of the stylus are converted into an electrical signal by a transducer. The phonograph was invented in 1877 by Thomas Edison, while other inventors had produced devices that could record sounds, Edisons phonograph was the first to be able to reproduce the recorded sound. His phonograph originally recorded sound onto a sheet wrapped around a rotating cylinder. A stylus responding to sound vibrations produced an up and down or hill-and-dale groove in the foil, in the 1890s, Emile Berliner initiated the transition from phonograph cylinders to flat discs with a spiral groove running from the periphery to near the center. Later improvements through the years included modifications to the turntable and its system, the stylus or needle. The disc phonograph record was the dominant audio recording format throughout most of the 20th century, from the mid-1980s on, phonograph use on a standard record player declined sharply because of the rise of the cassette tape, compact disc and other digital recording formats. Records are still a favorite format for some audiophiles and DJs, vinyl records are still used by some DJs and musicians in their concert performances. Musicians continue to release their recordings on vinyl records, the original recordings of musicians are sometimes re-issued on vinyl. Usage of terminology is not uniform across the English-speaking world, in more modern usage, the playback device is often called a turntable, record player, or record changer. When used in conjunction with a mixer as part of a DJ setup, the term phonograph was derived from the Greek words φωνή and γραφή. The similar related terms gramophone and graphophone have similar root meanings, the roots were already familiar from existing 19th-century words such as photograph, telegraph, and telephone. In British English, gramophone may refer to any sound-reproducing machine using disc records, the term phonograph was usually restricted to machines that used cylinder records. Gramophone generally referred to a wind-up machine, after the introduction of the softer vinyl records, 33 1⁄3-rpm LPs and 45-rpm single or two-song records, and EPs, the common name became record player or turntable. Often the home record player was part of a system that included a radio and, later, from about 1960, such a system began to be described as a hi-fi or a stereo. In American English, phonograph, properly specific to machines made by Edison, was used in a generic sense as early as the 1890s to include cylinder-playing machines made by others
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Magnetic cartridge
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Phono cartridges, also known as pickups, are electromechanical devices which convert mechanical energy into electrical energy. The cartridge contains a removable or permanently mounted stylus, the tip of which physical contact with the records groove. In popular usage and in disc jockey jargon, the stylus, the electrical signal generated by the cartridge can be amplified and then converted into sound by a loudspeaker. The first commercially successful type of electrical phonograph pickup was introduced in 1925 and its tracking weight was specified in ounces, not grams. The use of short-lived disposable metal needles remained standard, sapphire and diamond then became the standard stylus tip materials. The high compliance also reduced record wear and they soon became standard in all but the cheapest component audio systems and are the most common type of pickup cartridge in use today. The cartridge consists of components, the stylus, cantilever, magnets, coils. The stylus is the part that, when in use, is the interface with the record surface and it is typically made of a small polished diamond or other industrial gemstone. The cantilever supports the stylus, and transmits the vibrations from it to the coil/magnet assembly, the former is typically made of boron or aluminium, and previously beryllium although some manufacturers market models with exotic gemstone cantilevers. Coupled to the tonearm, the bodys function is to give the moving parts a stationary platform so that they can track the groove with precision. In high-fidelity systems, crystal and ceramic pickups have been replaced by the magnetic cartridge, compared to the crystal and ceramic pickups, the magnetic cartridge usually gives improved playback fidelity and reduced record wear by tracking the groove with lighter pressure. Magnetic cartridges use lower tracking forces and thus reduce the potential for groove damage and they also have a lower output voltage than a crystal or ceramic pickup, in the range of only a few millivolts, thus requiring greater amplification. In a moving magnet cartridge, the cantilever carries a tiny permanent magnet. As the magnet vibrates in response to the following the record groove. Because the magnet is small and has mass, and is not coupled mechanically to the generator. The MC design is again a tiny electromagnetic generator, but with the magnet and coils reversed, the coils are attached to the stylus, the coils are tiny and made from very fine wire. Since the number of windings that can be supported in such armature is small, the resulting signal is only a few hundred microvolts, and thus more easily swamped by noise, induced hum, etc. Thus it is challenging to design a preamplifier with the extremely low noise inputs needed for moving-coil cartridge
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Fade (audio engineering)
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In audio engineering, a fade is a gradual increase or decrease in the level of an audio signal. The term can also be used for film cinematography or theatre lighting in much the same way, a recorded song may be gradually reduced to silence at its end, or may gradually increase from silence at the beginning. Fading-out can serve as a solution for pieces of music that contain no obvious ending. Both fades and cross-fades are very valuable since they allow the engineer to quickly and easily make sure that the beginning and it is necessary that there is a clear section of silence prior to the audio. Fade-ins and out can also be used to change the characteristics of a sound, for example a fade-in is used to soften the attack and it can also be used to soften up the attack of the drum and/or percussion instruments. A cross-fade can be manipulated through its rates and coefficients in order to create different styles of fading, almost every fade is different, this means that the fade parameters must be adjusted according to the individual needs of the mix. Club DJs in house music and techno use DJ mixers, two or more sound sources along with a skill called beatmatching to make seamless dance mixes for dancers at raves, nightclubs, though relatively rare, songs can fade out then fade back in. 2 by Argent and Future by Paramore, possibly the earliest example of a fade-out ending can be heard in Joseph Haydns Symphony No. 45, nicknamed the Farewell Symphony on account of the fade-out ending and this was expressed by the players extinguishing their stand candles and leaving the stage one by one during the final adagio movement of the symphony, leaving only two muted violins playing. Esterhazy appears to have understood the message, allowing the musicians to leave, gustav Holsts Neptune, the mystic, part of the orchestral suite The Planets written between 1914 and 1916, is another early example of music to have a fade-out ending during performance. Until the imagination knew no difference between sound and silence, the technique of ending a spoken or musical recording by fading out the sound goes back to the earliest days of recording. This is called the “Pulse Continuity Phenomenon and was measured by a task to measure participants’ perception of pulsation. An 189478 rpm record called The Spirit of 76, a narrated musical vignette with martial fife-and-drum that gets louder as it nears the listener and quieter as it moves away, there are early examples that appear to bear no obvious relationship to movement. One is Barkin Dog by the Ted Lewis Jazz Band, another contender is America, a patriotic piece by the chorus of evangelist Billy Sunday. By the early 1930s longer songs were being put on both sides of records, with the fading out at the end of Side One. Records at the time only about two to five minutes of music per side. The segue allowed for longer songs, symphonies and live concert recordings, however, shorter songs continued to use the fade-out for unclear reasons—for example, Fred Astaires movie theme Flying Down to Rio. Even using fade-out as a segue device doesnt seem obvious, though we certainly take it for granted today and it is possible that movies were an influence here
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Amplifier
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An amplifier, electronic amplifier or amp is an electronic device that can increase the power of a signal. An amplifier functions by taking power from a supply and controlling the output to match the input signal shape. In this sense, an amplifier modulates the output of the power supply based upon the properties of the input signal, an amplifier is effectively the opposite of an attenuator, while an amplifier provides gain, an attenuator provides loss. An amplifier can either be a piece of equipment or an electrical circuit contained within another device. Amplification is fundamental to modern electronics, and amplifiers are used in almost all electronic equipment. Amplifiers can be categorized in different ways, another is which quantity, voltage or current is being amplified, amplifiers can be divided into voltage amplifiers, current amplifiers, transconductance amplifiers, and transresistance amplifiers. A further distinction is whether the output is a linear or nonlinear representation of the input, amplifiers can also be categorized by their physical placement in the signal chain. The first practical device that could amplify was the triode vacuum tube, invented in 1906 by Lee De Forest. Vacuum tubes were used in almost all amplifiers until the 1960s–1970s when the transistor, invented in 1947, today most amplifiers use transistors, but vacuum tubes continue to be used in some applications. Before the invention of electronic amplifiers, mechanically coupled carbon microphones were used as amplifiers in telephone repeaters. After the turn of the century it was found that negative resistance mercury lamps could amplify, the first practical electronic device that could amplify was the Audion vacuum tube, invented in 1906 by Lee De Forest, which led to the first amplifiers around 1912. The terms amplifier and amplification were first used for this new capability around 1915 when triodes became widespread, the amplifying vacuum tube revolutionized electrical technology, creating the new field of electronics, the technology of active electrical devices. It made possible long distance lines, public address systems, radio broadcasting, talking motion pictures, practical audio recording, radar, television. For 50 years virtually all electronic devices used vacuum tubes. Early tube amplifiers often had positive feedback, which could increase gain but also make the amplifier unstable, much of the mathematical theory of amplifiers was developed at Bell Telephone Laboratories during the 1920s to 1940s. Other advances in the theory of amplification were made by Harry Nyquist, the vacuum tube was the only amplifying device for 40 years, and dominated electronics until 1947, when the first transistor, the BJT, was invented. Today most amplifiers use transistors, but vacuum tubes are used in some high power applications such as radio transmitters. All amplifiers have gain, a factor that relates the magnitude of some property of the output signal to a property of the input signal
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Loudspeaker
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A loudspeaker is an electroacoustic transducer, which converts an electrical audio signal into a corresponding sound. The most widely used type of speaker in the 2010s is the speaker, invented in 1925 by Edward W. Kellogg. The dynamic speaker operates on the basic principle as a dynamic microphone. Besides this most common method, there are several technologies that can be used to convert an electrical signal into sound. The sound source must be amplified or strengthened with a power amplifier before the signal is sent to the speaker. Speakers are typically housed in an enclosure or speaker cabinet which is often a rectangular or square box made of wood or sometimes plastic. The enclosures materials and design play an important role in the quality of the sound, where high fidelity reproduction of sound is required, multiple loudspeaker transducers are often mounted in the same enclosure, each reproducing a part of the audible frequency range. In this case the individual speakers are referred to as drivers, drivers made for reproducing high audio frequencies are called tweeters, those for middle frequencies are called mid-range drivers, and those for low frequencies are called woofers. Smaller loudspeakers are found in such as radios, televisions, portable audio players, computers. Larger loudspeaker systems are used for music, sound reinforcement in theatres and concerts, the term loudspeaker may refer to individual transducers or to complete speaker systems consisting of an enclosure including one or more drivers. To adequately reproduce a range of frequencies with even coverage, most loudspeaker systems employ more than one driver. Individual drivers are used to different frequency ranges. The drivers are named subwoofers, woofers, mid-range speakers, tweeters, the terms for different speaker drivers differ, depending on the application. In two-way systems there is no mid-range driver, so the task of reproducing the mid-range sounds falls upon the woofer and tweeter, home stereos use the designation tweeter for the high frequency driver, while professional concert systems may designate them as HF or highs. When multiple drivers are used in a system, a network, called a crossover. Loudspeaker driver of the type pictured are termed dynamic to distinguish them from earlier drivers, or speakers using piezoelectric or electrostatic systems, or any of several other sorts. Johann Philipp Reis installed an electric loudspeaker in his telephone in 1861, it was capable of reproducing clear tones, alexander Graham Bell patented his first electric loudspeaker as part of his telephone in 1876, which was followed in 1877 by an improved version from Ernst Siemens. In 1898, Horace Short patented a design for a loudspeaker driven by compressed air, he sold the rights to Charles Parsons
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Thomas Edison
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Thomas Alva Edison was an American inventor and businessman, who has been described as Americas greatest inventor. He developed many devices that greatly influenced life around the world, including the phonograph, the motion picture camera, and the long-lasting, practical electric light bulb. Edison was an inventor, holding 1,093 US patents in his name, as well as many patents in the United Kingdom, France. Edisons inventions contributed to mass communication and, in particular, telecommunications and these included a stock ticker, a mechanical vote recorder, a battery for an electric car, electrical power, recorded music and motion pictures. His advanced work in these fields was an outgrowth of his career as a telegraph operator. Edison developed a system of generation and distribution to homes, businesses. His first power station was on Pearl Street in Manhattan, New York, Thomas Edison was born in Milan, Ohio, and grew up in Port Huron, Michigan. He was the seventh and last child of Samuel Ogden Edison, Jr. and Nancy Matthews Elliott. His father, the son of a Loyalist refugee, had moved as a boy with the family from Nova Scotia, settling in southwestern Ontario, in a known as Shewsbury, later Vienna. Samuel Jr. eventually fled Ontario because he took part in the unsuccessful Mackenzie Rebellion of 1837 and his father, Samuel Sr. had earlier fought in the War of 1812 as captain of the First Middlesex Regiment. By contrast, Samuel Jr. s struggle found him on the losing side, once across the border, he found his way to Milan, Ohio. His patrilineal family line was Dutch by way of New Jersey and his mother taught him at home. Much of his education came from reading R. G, parkers School of Natural Philosophy and The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art. Edison developed hearing problems at an early age, the cause of his deafness has been attributed to a bout of scarlet fever during childhood and recurring untreated middle-ear infections. In his later years, he modified the story to say the injury occurred when the conductor, in helping him onto a moving train, Edisons family moved to Port Huron, Michigan, after the railroad bypassed Milan in 1854 and business declined. Edison sold candy and newspapers on trains running from Port Huron to Detroit and he briefly worked as a telegraph operator in 1863 for the Grand Trunk Railway at Stratford, Ontario railway at age 16. He was held responsible for a near collision and he also studied qualitative analysis and conducted chemical experiments on the train until he left the job. Edison obtained the right to sell newspapers on the road, and, with the aid of four assistants, he set in type and printed the Grand Trunk Herald
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Singin' in the Rain
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Singin in the Rain is a 1952 American musical comedy film directed and choreographed by Gene Kelly and Stanley Donen, starring Kelly, Donald OConnor, and Debbie Reynolds. It offers a depiction of Hollywood in the late 1920s. The film was only a modest hit when first released and it topped the AFIs Greatest Movie Musicals list and is ranked as the fifth-greatest American motion picture of all time in its updated list of the greatest American films in 2007. In 1989, the United States Library of Congress selected the film for preservation in the National Film Registry, Don Lockwood is a popular silent film star with humble roots as a singer, dancer, and stuntman. Don barely tolerates his vain, cunning, and shallow leading lady, Lina Lamont, though their studio, Monumental Pictures, Lina is convinced they are in love, despite Dons protestations otherwise. At the premiere of his newest film, The Royal Rascal, Don tells the crowd an exaggerated version of his life story, including his motto, Dignity. His words are humorously contradicted by flashbacks showing him alongside his best friend Cosmo Brown, to escape from his fans after the premiere, Don jumps into a passing car driven by Kathy Selden. She drops him off, but not before claiming to be a stage actress, later, at a party, the head of Dons studio, R. F. Simpson, shows a short demonstration of a picture. To Dons amusement, Kathy pops out of a mock cake right in front of him, furious at Dons teasing, she throws a real cake at him, only to hit Lina right in the face. Don is smitten with Kathy and searches for her for weeks, while filming a love scene, Lina tells him that she had Kathy fired. Don finally finds Kathy working in another Monumental Pictures production and she confesses to having been a fan of his all along. The production is beset with difficulties, including Linas grating voice, an exasperated diction coach tries to teach her how to speak properly, but to no avail. Don, Kathy and Cosmo come up with the idea to turn The Duelling Cavalier into a musical called The Dancing Cavalier, Cosmo, inspired by a scene in The Duelling Cavalier where Linas voice was out of sync, suggests that they dub Linas voice with Kathys. R. F. approves the idea but tells them not to inform Lina about the dubbing, when Lina finds out, she is infuriated. She becomes even angrier when she discovers that R. F. intends to give Kathy a screen credit, Lina threatens to sue R. F. unless he orders Kathy to continue working uncredited as Linas voice. R. F. reluctantly agrees to her demands, as a clause in her states that she can sue whenever denied a role of her choosing. The premiere of The Dancing Cavalier is a tremendous success, when the audience clamors for Lina to sing live, Don, Cosmo, and R. F. tell her to lip sync into the microphone while Kathy, hidden behind the curtain, sings into a second one
36.
Strowger switch
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The Strowger switch was the first commercially successful electromechanical stepping switch telephone exchange system. It was invented by Almon Brown Strowger, and first patented in 1891, because of its operational characteristics it is also known as a step-by-step switch. Strowger, an undertaker, was motivated to invent an automatic telephone exchange after having difficulties with the telephone operators. He was said to be convinced that she, as one of the telephone exchange operators, was sending calls to the undertaker to her husband. He first conceived his invention in 1888, and patented the telephone exchange in 1891. It is reported that the model was made from a round collar box. The Strowger Automatic Telephone Exchange Company was founded in 1891, the company installed and opened the first commercial exchange in his then-home town of La Porte, Indiana on November 3,1892, with about 75 subscribers and capacity for 99. Early advertising called the new invention the girl-less, cuss-less, out-of-order-less, wait-less telephone, the Strowger patents were exclusively licensed to the Automatic Electric Company. Strowger sold his patents in 1896 for US$1,800 and sold his share in Automatic Electric in 1898 for US$10,000 and his patents subsequently sold for US$2.5 million in 1916. Company engineers continued development of the Strowger designs and submitted several patents in the names of its employees, the Strowger system was widely used until the development of the more reliable crossbar switch, an electromechanical switch with a matrix of vertical and horizontal bars and simpler motions. Strowgers patent specifies dialing equipment at the location and the switching equipment at the central office. The customer device creates trains of on-off current pulses corresponding to the digits 1-9 and this equipment originally consisted of two telegraph keys engaged by knife switches, and evolved into the rotary dial telephone. The central office switching equipment had a two-motion stepping switch, a contact arm could be moved up and down to select one of ten rows of contacts, and then rotated to select one of ten contacts in that row, a total of 100 choices. The stepping motion was controlled by the current pulses coming from the originating customers telegraph keys, the Strowger switch had three banks of contacts, what appear to be continuous arcs of metal might be shields, individual contacts are hidden. Toward the upper end of each shaft are two copper-colored ratchets, the upper one has ten grooves, and raises the shaft. The lower one has long vertical teeth, the Strowger switch used two telegraph type keys on a telephone set for dialing. Each key required a wire to the exchange. The keys were tapped to step the switch in two stages, the first set of incoming pulses raises the armature of an electromagnet to move a shaft which selects the desired level of contacts, by engaging a pawl with the upper ratchet
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Fox Film
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The Fox Film Corporation was an American company that produced motion pictures, formed by William Fox on 1 February 1915. It was the successor to his earlier Greater New York Film Rental Company. On July 23,1926, the company bought the patents of the Movietone sound system for recording sound on to film, after the Crash of 1929, William Fox lost control of the company in 1930, during a hostile takeover. Under new president Sidney Kent, the new owners merged the company with Twentieth Century Pictures to form 20th Century Fox in 1935, William Fox entered the film industry in 1904 when he purchased a one-third share of a Brooklyn nickelodeon for $1,667. Fox invested further in the industry by founding the Greater New York Film Rental Company as a film distributor. In 1914, reflecting the broader scope of his business, he renamed it the Box Office Attraction Film Rental Company and he also continued to distribute material from other sources, such as Winsor McCays early animated film Gertie the Dinosaur. Later that year, Fox concluded that depending on other companies for the products he depended on was insufficient and he purchased the Éclair studio facilities in Fort Lee, New Jersey, along with property in Staten Island, and arranged for actors and crew. The company became a studio, with its name shortened to the Box Office Attractions Company. Always more of an entrepreneur than a showman, Fox concentrated on acquiring and building theaters, in 1917, William Fox sent Sol M. Wurtzel to Hollywood to oversee the studios West Coast production facilities where a more hospitable and cost-effective climate existed for filmmaking. Fox had purchased the Edendale studio of the failing Selig Polyscope Company, with the introduction of sound technology, Fox moved to acquire the rights to a sound-on-film process. In the years 1925–26, Fox purchased the rights to the work of Freeman Harrison Owens and this resulted in the Movietone sound system later known as Fox Movietone developed at the Movietone Studio. Later that year, the company began offering films with a track, and the following year Fox began the weekly Fox Movietone News feature. The growing company needed space, and in 1926 Fox acquired 300 acres in the country west of Beverly Hills and built Movietone City. When rival Marcus Loew died in 1927, Fox offered to buy the Loew familys holdings, Loews Inc. controlled more than 200 theaters, as well as the MGM studio. When the family agreed to the sale, the merger of Fox, but MGM studio boss Louis B. Mayer was not included in the deal and fought back. Using political connections, Mayer called on the Justice Departments antitrust unit to delay giving final approval to the merger, overextended and close to bankruptcy, Fox was stripped of his empire in 1930 and ended up in jail. Fox Film, with more than 500 theatres, was placed in receivership, a bank-mandated reorganization propped the company up for a time, but it soon became apparent that despite its size, Fox could not stand on its own. Under new president Sidney Kent, the new owners began negotiating with the upstart, the two companies merged that spring as 20th Century-Fox
