Jeff: Recently, Wavescan listener Vince Koepke sent us a pdf copy of a brochure produced by the Zenith Radio Corporation in 1955, detailing some of the early history of the company. If you’ve ever been lucky enough to own a Zenith Trans-Oceanic receiver, you’ll know how important this company was to the shortwave listening audience. The brochure makes for fascinating reading, and so we’ve decided to serialize it over a few weeks here in the broadcast. This week, Ray Robinson has the first part, covering from the very early days up until the early 1920’s.
Ray: Thanks, Jeff. The history of Zenith was to a considerable degree a history of the radio-television industry in the United States. This was so because Zenith was a pioneer and leader in radionics since before there was a radio industry, and it played an important role in almost every important development during radio growth from an amateur toy to the most significant, widespread, and effective system of communications in history.
On December 14, 1901, Guglielmo Marconi flashed the letter “S” across the Atlantic Ocean by wireless telegraph, and thereby launched a revolution in communications that was destined to bring profound changes in the pattern of civilization. Marconi’s tremendous achievement brought only passing attention from the adult public, but it kindled the imagination of eager youngsters everywhere. In the decade that followed, many of these youngsters dismayed their parents by devoting more time and effort to “Marconi’s toy” than to preparing themselves for a future in “something practical”.
Beginnings
Two of these “wireless doodlers” lived hundreds of miles apart, and were to meet only by sheer chance. R.H.G. Mathews of Chicago pursued the hobby and qualified as an amateur radio operator in 1912. In 1915 he began building and selling wireless equipment to other amateurs. Karl Hassel of Sharpsville, PA, won his amateur license in 1915, and then matriculated at the University of Pittsburgh. Here he discovered that he was the only person on the campus, student or faculty, who knew how to operate the University’s newly constructed wireless station.
Came World War I, and both boys enlisted in the Navy. They met at Great Lakes Naval Training Station, and worked together on radio until 1918. They then set up a continuation of Mathews’ business as Chicago Radio Laboratory, building and selling radio sets.
Their first factory was a table in Mathews’ kitchen. Their tools were pliers, screwdrivers, a hand drill, and a soldering iron that had to be heated over the burner of a gas stove. From this kitchen table workshop grew the business that was to become Zenith Radio Corporation.
Early in their business life Mathews and Hassel began a long series of radio “firsts” that became a Zenith tradition. One of their first ventures was construction of a longwave radio receiver for the Chicago Tribune, which was used to pick up news dispatches about the Versailles Peace Conference from a longwave station in France. This short circuiting of the congested trans-Atlantic cable enabled the Tribune to beat competitors by 12 to 24 hours on conference stories.
The varnish had scarcely dried on the kitchen table workbench before the fledgling business needed larger quarters. The boys built a new factory near the Edgewater Beach Hotel. It was a shanty-like structure that gave them a working space of 14 by 18 feet, with a cubby hole for their amateur radio station, 9ZN. At about the same time they published their first catalogue. A few months later they coined the trade name, Z-Nith, from the call letters of their radio station. This was the origin of the trade mark, Zenith.
The next Z-Nith first was construction and installation of a wireless system that made the Nashville, Chattanooga & St. Louis Railway the first railroad in the world to successfully dispatch trains by wireless telegraph. Transmitters and receivers were set up in Tullahoma, TN and Guntersville, AL to handle traffic over the rough country between.
Initial difficulties included such things as the transmitters setting off a bank’s burglar alarm during a directors’ meeting; adding a high voltage shock to the pain of a dentist’s drill while he was working on a touchy patient; and putting nearby telephones out of service. These problems were ironed out. The system went into service, and operated successfully for several years.
By the end of 1919, the Z-Nith partnership was thriving, with production exceeding one complete set per week. In May, 1920, the boys acquired their most important asset, a license to use the basic regenerative circuit patent of radio’s greatest inventive genius, the late Major Edwin H. Armstrong.
Until the latter part of 1920, Chicago Radio Laboratory concentrated on building equipment for the growing army of radio amateurs, or “hams” as they soon came to be known. A change came in November of that year. Radio broadcasting as we know it today was non-existent. The University of Wisconsin had begun in 1919 a regular broadcast schedule of news, market reports, weather information, and general programs from its station 9XN (now WHA, which has been licensed to the University of Wisconsin since 1922 and still broadcasts Wisconsin Public Radio 102 years later on 970 AM).
Initially as a public service for radio amateurs, WHA developed a unique program. Each noon it radio-telegraphed the weather report in fast code for expert “hams”. The report was then repeated in slow code so that beginners could take it. After that, an announcer read the weather report for the general public, and so that beginner “hams” could check their accuracy.
Here and there around the country other stations produced similar schedules, but only a narrow segment of the public showed interest.
Then came the presidential election of 1920. News of the Harding landslide was disseminated with startling speed throughout the country by station KDKA in Pitts- burgh and other stations. The public suddenly realized that Marconi's toy was a very useful and practical communications tool. Broadcasting began in earnest.
Hassel and Mathews quickly put on the market a receiver with which the general public could hear the growing number of broadcasts. Business boomed, and within a few months the walls of Chicago Radio Laboratory's new factory were bulging. So the company moved to a mammoth 3,000 square foot plant on Ravenswood Avenue, with a staggering rental of $300 per month, and a payroll of six employees. At this time the boys bought their first power tool, a motor-driven drill press, and boosted production to more than one set per day.
McDonald Joins the Partnership
In the meantime, E.F. McDonald, Jr., of Syracuse, NY, had established himself in the automobile business in Chicago, where he introduced the first successful plan for selling automobiles on time payments. He had served through the war in Naval Intelligence and been discharged with the rank of Lieutenant-Commander; and was looking around for a new business.
On New Year’s Eve, 1920, McDonald went to a garage to pick up his automobile, and noticed several men listening to music coming from a box. He asked the proprietor what there was about this phonograph to make people listen to it on New Year’s Eve.
“That is no phonograph,” he was told. “That is a radio. They are listening to music through the air from Pittsburgh.”
McDonald learned that it would take several months to get delivery on a radio set for himself, and decided he had found his new business for which he had been searching since the end of the war. However, it was not that simple. He found out that he would need a license to use the inventions of Major E. H. Armstrong, and Armstrong licenses were no longer available.
Temporarily balked, McDonald soon heard about two young men — Hassel and Mathews — who were building radio receivers on Chicago’s north side.
Thinking about that radio set, he paid a visit to the Ravenswood factory and took particular fancy to a set that sold for $75.00, less tubes, batteries, and headphones. Hassel, in person, came to McDonald’s residence at the Illinois Athletic Club to install it—and didn't leave until he had collected his money. Recalling the occasion, Hassel said, “It wasn’t a question of whether I trusted him or not—we needed the money to keep going.”
Hassel and Mathews had the all-important Armstrong license, and more business than they could handle with the equipment they owned. But they were short on capital. McDonald joined forces with them, provided funds for expansion, and became general manager of Chicago Radio Laboratory. One of his first moves was to change the trade mark from Z-Nith to Zenith.
Normally, capital investment in an existing business results in an equity for the investor. In this case, however, the largest investor, McDonald, owned no interest whatsoever in Chicago Radio Laboratory, and for a very good reason. The Armstrong license was held by Chicago Radio Laboratory, a co-partnership, and was not transferable. This also had its bearing on the organization of Zenith Radio Corporation. When that company was formed in 1923 it was not a manufacturer. Instead, it was the exclusive sales and marketing organization for handling the radio equipment built by Chicago Radio Laboratory. This arrangement continued until other developments made a consolidation possible, at which time the entire assets and business of Chicago Radio Laboratory were acquired and Zenith became a manufacturer in its own name.
And that’s where we have to leave the Zenith story this week. We’ll continue with Part 2 in a few weeks’ time. Back to you, Jeff.
(AWR)