How History Unfolds on Paper: Important Americana from the Eric C. Caren Collection, Part X

(Washington, D.C.: United States Printing Office), 1927. Comprising eight sheets, three with printed text recto and verso, five with printed diagrams; stapled in top left corner. Printed patent issued by the United States Patent Office for Charles A. Hoxie, assignor to the General Electric Company, for a "Method and Apparatus for the Transmission of Pictures and Views". Scattered ink stamps.

A patent issued to Charles A. Hoxie (1867-1941), a pioneering electrical engineer in talking motion pictures and radio communication, for an apparatus to transmit pictures and views. Raised in Constable, New York, and educated in Boston, Hoxie joined General Electric in 1912, where he first worked on measurements for establishing standards of capacity, inductance, resistance, and electromotive force. With an interest in telephony, in 1920 he developed a visual and photographic receiver for transatlantic wireless communication, which received messages thirty-times faster than the most skillful operator. It was in relation to this work that led Hoxie to the creation in 1922 of his pallophotophone, a machine that could record sound on film. An early basis for the RCA Photophone, one of four major devices that helped revolutionize the film industry with the introduction of sound. Hoxie applied for a patent for the above device on September 23, 1924, and it is likely related to his experiments with sound film. The first major sound film, The Jazz Singer, was released a month prior to this patent, on October 6, 1927.