This year’s African American Steering Committee wants to pay attention to some of the long history, including famous creativity, craftsmen, scientists and leaders. Cutting black “You know?” this year will celebrate the invention of inventors and their everyday objects that help storytelling in movies and TV.
Frederick McKinley Jones
1893– 1961
After military service in World War I, Jones returned to Harlock Farm, Minnesota. He worked as a mechanic while studying electronics. He built a transmitter for the town’s first radio station. He also invented a device that combines sound with movies. This caught the attention of Joseph A. Numero, a local entrepreneur in Minneapolis, Minnesota. Numero owns a company that makes sound equipment, called Ultra Phone Sound Systems Inc., which was later renamed Cinema Supplies Inc. He hired Jones as an electrical engineer in 1927 to improve the audio equipment his company made. Jones is committed to converting silent film projectors into audiovisual projectors. In addition, he designed methods to stabilize and improve image quality. In 1939, Jones invented and obtained the patent for automatic box office use in cinemas. Later, he sold the patent to RCA.
According to MIT, he also invented the first process, which enables the film projector to play recorded sounds, making pictures of speeches possible.
In 1991, the National Technology Medal was awarded to Jones and his partner Joseph A. Numero after the death of then-President George HW Bush. Bush presented the Widow with awards at the White House Rose Garden ceremony. Jones was the first black American to win the award.
