The History of Chicago's Public Bath Houses.

Johnson's Bathing and Shaving Saloon.

The subscriber takes pleasure in informing his old customers, and the public generally, that he has removed his establishment opposite his old stand, on Clark Street, between Lake and Randolph, where he has fitted up in a superior manner for the reception of all who may favor him with a call. While in anticipation of the Cholera making its appearance in Chicago this spring and summer, it is well known to all that Bathing in considered a great perventive of this dreadful disease, therefore, I repeat that one perventive is better than a hundred cures.

Friday Evening of every week, from 9 o'clock till 11, will be set apart for the express accommodation of Ladies, at which time the public shop will be closed.

Bathing, Shaving, Hair Cutting, and SAhampooing, all done at the shortest notice.

Single Tickets 30¢ ─ Four Tickets $1.

The subecriber returnsa his greatful thanks to the public for their liberal patronage, and hopes iot will be continued.

WM. JOHNSON

Chicago Tribune, April 23, 1849: In the first Tribune.

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By the late 1800s, personal cleanliness had become a cultural norm for Americans, necessary for social acceptance, symbolic of good character, and essential for protecting public health from infectious diseases. 

Without bathing facilities in their homes, the urban poor and working class could not conform to this cleanliness standard. During the Progressive era, reformers urged city governments to build public baths for the poor. Chicago's government responded by building 21 small, utilitarian public bathhouses in poor and immigrant neighborhoods between 1894 and 1918.

A women's reform organization in Chicago, the Municipal Order League (later renamed the Free Bath and Sanitary League), led the campaign for public baths. Three women physicians, Gertrude Gail Wellington, Sarah Hackett Stevenson, and Julia R. Lowe, headed the crusade. Beginning in 1892, Wellington led the effort, utilizing the network of women reformers in Chicago centering in the settlement houses, especially Jane Addams's Hull House, the Chicago Woman's Club and the Fortnightly Club. These women gained support for the cause of public baths from the press and the city government under Mayor Hempstead Washburne and city council finance committee chairman Martin Madden. Chicago's first public bath, located at 192 Mather Street, near Hull House on the Near West Side, opened in 1894. It was named after the assassination of mayor Carter H. Harrison and cost $20,649. After that, Chicago public baths were generally named after prominent local citizens.

Small Public Bath, William Mavor Bath, Chicago, 1900.

Although some American cities built elaborate, monumental, and expensive public baths, Chicago conformed to the bath reformers' ideal that public bathhouses should be modest, unpretentious, strictly functional, accessible, and located in poor and immigrant neighborhoods readily accessible to bathers. Chicago's bathhouses generally contained between 20 and 40 showers, attached dressing rooms, and a waiting room. There were no separate sections for men and women; two days a week were reserved for women, girls, and small children with their mothers. Bath patrons did not control water or temperature, which were regulated by an attendant who turned on the shower for 7 to 8 of the 20 minutes allowed for a bath.

                     Pilsen Public Bath                                        Ogden Public Bath

Despite this functional emphasis, bath patrons utilized public baths more to cool off in the summer than to bathe in the winter. Additionally, utilization of public baths began to decline even as the city opened new baths. Peak attendance was reached in 1910 when a total of 1,070,565 baths were taken in the 15 bathhouses in operation; by 1918, when 21 bathhouses were open, utilization had declined to 709,452 baths. The opening of bathing beaches and swimming pools in the early 1900s and housing reform laws that required private toilets in apartments (many landlords added bathtubs as well) contributed to the decline in public bath usage.

Negro Owned Bathhouses and Baths.

Middle-aged civic activist Lewis Isbel's (1818-1905) journey from obscurity to celebrity mirrored the possibilities for Negroes of the frontier age. When he first arrived, he worked in primitive conditions on Clark Street between Lake and Randolph. Soon he struck out on his own and established a shop in Frink and Walker’s Stage office at Lake and Dearborn, opposite the popular accommodations offered at the Tremont House.

Early in the 1840s, he moved again to an alley location north of the Sherman House Hotel. With a growing clientele with constant tonsorial needs (a word that describes the work of those who give shaves and haircuts), Isbel secured space within the Sherman House itself, offering what he described as the town’s first combination barbershop and bathhouse. Lewis Isbel owned and operated two of the three bathhouses in the city by 1842, one with a section for women.

At an Emancipation Day celebration, Barber Lewis Isbel fell victim to a white pickpocket. After catching the perpetrator, Isbel suffered insult after injury when his testimony against the white man was disallowed in court by the provisions of the black laws that forbade Negro testimony against whites.

Settlement houses, for example, often provided limited bathing facilities for the neighborhoods they served. This was true of Hull House and the University of Chicago Settlement House. Chicago built simple bathhouses with shower baths and little else. Chicago opened its first year-round bath in 1894. By 1920, Chicago had built 21 bathhouses in poor and working-class districts.

After World War II, Chicago began to close down its public bathhouses. By the 1970s, only one bathhouse remained open to serve Skid Row (SRO; single-room occupancy) residents, which also closed in 1979.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The Village of Godfrey, Illinois

The Village of Godfrey lies on the east side of the Mississippi River between the confluences of the Illinois and Missouri rivers. When waterways were the only highways, the junctions of the three rivers formed important intersections. The location drew Indians, Europeans, and—during Illinois’ territorial period—three groups of frontier settlers: “First, the white man born in a slave state…; second, the negro, generally a slave; and third, the Yankee, from over the Mountains.”

Benjamin Godfrey House

Reverend Jacob Lurton and his wife, the former Sarah Tuley, left their longtime home in Louisville, Kentucky, in the spring of 1817. Accompanied by an extended family and six slaves, the Lurtons were Godfrey’s first recorded settlers. Like many of their frontier counterparts, the Lurtons held slaves, engaged in whiskey making, and shared an antagonism toward Yankees. When Yankees took issue with the Southerners’ ways, the Lurtons and their neighbors moved on.

New Englanders led the second wave of Godfrey settlers. Nathan and Latty Scarritt were temperate, hardworking, devout Methodist farmers who recruited like-minded neighbors. Five years after the Scarritts settled in Godfrey, an influx of eastern businessmen developed nearby Alton’s riverfront. The Yankee businessmen considered Godfrey to be Alton’s chief source of natural resources and agricultural goods. By 1833, Alton and Godfrey were joined economically, but local settlers were deeply divided by social issues—especially slavery.

The small settlement of the Rocky Fork area in Godfrey may be the oldest and largest Underground Railroad site in Illinois. Rocky Fork was a refuge for runaway slaves. Courageous Negroes risked their lives to escape slavery, then continued to reach back to help others gain freedom. Indians provided protection and shelter to runaways until the close of the War of 1812. White “Friends to Humanity,” acting in response to their antislavery beliefs, also assisted slaves. In 1828, with the protection and assistance of Don Alonzo Spaulding and his family, Rocky Fork became a large-scale Underground Railroad station. Operated by both blacks and whites, the station drew fugitive slaves from Southern Illinois, Missouri, Kentucky, and Tennessee. The history of Rocky Fork presents a compelling, multi-racial effort that spanned decades.

Benjamin Godfrey, the man for whom Godfrey is named, has long been a subject of local speculation. Was he a hardened pirate with ties to the infamous Jean Lafitte? Or was he a pious and humble businessman with a passion for reform? The former New England sea captain came to the area in 1832 with $50,000. He quickly expanded his fortune as a partner in the successful freight-forwarding firm of Godfrey, Gilman & Company. He built the first church in Alton, a mansion in Godfrey, and the first women’s college west of the Allegheny Mountains. Yet, when asked about his past, Godfrey only said: “It would make a novel.” Benjamin Godfrey’s reticence concealed his past involvement in the domestic slave trade. By 1835, he and his partner were among the most successful businessmen in Illinois. In alliance with others, Godfrey embarked on a phenomenal array of economic development and philanthropic reform projects. By 1838, Godfrey had an interest in land, stock companies, lead mines, smelting equipment, steamships, and the proposed Alton-Shelbyville Railroad. Lower Alton was the scene of a commercial empire that was projected to rival St. Louis.

Several tragic events occurred in rapid succession in 1837. First, Elijah Lovejoy, a young minister and newspaper editor from New England, was killed by a proslavery mob while guarding his printing press in Godfrey, Gilman & Company’s Alton warehouse. Lovejoy’s martyrdom and the farcical trials that followed his death destroyed Alton’s reputation in the East. Next, a national economic downturn reached panic proportions. Godfrey and Gilman’s vertical monopoly on the Galena lead market collapsed, triggering the failure of other Alton businesses. Construction stopped, and land values dropped. Hard times set in. When a subsequent bank investigation of Godfrey and his partner in management abuses, the two men resigned their positions and prepared to dissolve their commercial empire.

Monticello Female Seminary opened in 1838 at the height of Benjamin Godfrey’s financial woes. Nevertheless, Godfrey spared no expense in building a palatial three-story stone building. Godfrey placed Reverend Theron Baldwin, a member of the Yale Band, in charge of academics. Baldwin modeled Monticello’s rigorous curriculum after that of his alma mater and hired three Eastern women to teach. Philena Fobes, a twenty-seven-year-old “blue stocking” with a love of learning and high academic standards, quickly rose to a leadership position at the college. Seminary students included the privileged daughters of the wealthiest, most powerful men in the state, as well as slaveholders’ daughters, Cherokee Indian girls, and orphaned girls on scholarship.

Monticello Female Seminary, Godfrey, Illinois

Benjamin Godfrey suffered a staggering series of personal and financial losses in the aftermath of the Panic of 1837. Turning his attention to his farm, family, the Seminary he founded, and the village he platted, Godfrey used the period to regroup and polish his remaining assets. He sought to insulate the college and the community from the reputation for violence that descended on the area after Lovejoy’s murder. 

During the following decade, the Village of Monticello, a conservative New England community in both appearance and values, revolved around the Seminary, its two Protestant churches, and Benjamin Godfrey and his family.

In 1850, with the help of Abraham Lincoln and other members of the Illinois State Legislature, Benjamin Godfrey began construction on the long-awaited Alton-Sangamon Railroad. Godfrey encountered engineering difficulties, bad weather, labor problems, and cost overruns from the outset. In desperation, the founder sought additional funds from a New York financier, mortgaging everything he owned. When the double ribbon of track was completed in 1852, the road was renamed the Chicago and Mississippi Railroad. At the same time, Godfrey was replaced as superintendent of the road and embroiled in a series of lawsuits that dragged on for years. His efforts, however, brought renewed hope and prosperity to the region. Farmers cultivated more land, and land prices rose; coalmines, sawmills, flour mills, factories, and distilleries operated at capacity. New industries opened, and jobs were plentiful. At the height of its academic and cultural achievement, Monticello Seminary was dubbed “the ornament of the West.”

The Mexican War, the California Gold Rush, the railroad, and the telegraph brought the rest of the nation closer. Change spawned new antagonisms and conflicts.

The death of Elijah Lovejoy in 1837 gave rise to the abolition movement. Antislavery men and women were appalled as growing numbers of free blacks and runaways were jailed and kidnapped. Eastern missionaries drew a line east from Alton across the State of Illinois. The area south of the line was considered proslavery and outside the boundaries of the missionaries’ cause. Godfrey was just north of the line. St. Louis slaveholders formed a secret organization and stepped up their efforts to return runaways and expose those who assisted runaways. Secret Copperhead societies formed. Local black leaders emerged to combat the Fugitive Slave Law of 1850. Sympathetic whites, including Dr. Benjamin Franklin Long of Godfrey, founded the Illinois Mutual Fire Insurance Company. This legitimate business provided a highly organized, well-disguised cover for an Underground Railroad system that spanned central and northern Illinois. Dr. Long’s farm became the first stop on Rocky Fork’s Underground Railroad. Rocky Fork’s population doubled between 1850 and 1860. When Lincoln and Douglas debated at Alton in 1858, the United States was on the path to war.

Abraham Lincoln carried Monticello Precinct in the 1860 presidential election but did not carry Madison or surrounding counties. When the southern states seceded from the Union, many residents of Southern Illinois sympathized with the Confederacy. In Godfrey, however, a large, enthusiastic crowd immediately gathered to express their loyalty to the Union. Amidst rumors of traitors, county secessions, and invasion, Godfrey residents formed the secret “Monticello Prudential Committee.” Sons of Godfrey’s original settlers served with the Mississippi Ram Fleet, fought in the battles of Ft. Henry and Ft. Donelson in Kentucky, and at the bloody battle of Shiloh in Tennessee. Sgt. Carlos Colby, a Godfrey resident and a nephew of Dr. Benjamin F. Long, was awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor for heroism during the Siege of Vicksburg.

It was time for a fresh start when the soldiers came home victorious and honored the dead. There was a feeling of hope, gaiety, and change in the air. A new generation was in charge. Reminiscences of the pioneering generation became history. New leaders emerged. Reverend Erasmus Green, a black Civil War veteran, presided over the newly built Rocky Fork A.M.E. Church. At Monticello Seminary, women laid aside their hoop skirts and performed in gymnastic exhibitions. Philena Fobes retired. “What is unfinished in one administration,” she said, “may be completed in another.”

Godfrey’s original settlers made astounding progress despite differing styles, values and beliefs. Within a generation, they cleared land, built homes, cultivated farms, and successfully established churches, schools, and businesses.

In 1991, the Village of Godfrey was incorporated. Local monuments, historic landmarks, churches, and traditions commemorate Godfrey’s pioneering generation.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

Herbert Televox, the Mechanical Man, Chicago, Illinois

Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Co's first robot was Herbert Televox, built in 1927 by Roy Wensley at their East Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania plant. The robot was based on the patents of Wensley, filed in 1923, 1927 and 1929. The first man weighed 600 pounds, but the one above only weighs 40 pounds. The Televox could accept a telephone call by lifting the telephone receiver. It could then control a few simple processes by operating some switches, depending on the signals that were received. Televox could utter a few primordial buzzes and grunts and could wave his arms a bit. Although speechless when first created, Televox later learned to say two simple sentences.

From the January, 1928, issue of Popular Science Monthly journal:

Look first at that mechanical creature answering the telephone. He is the invention of R. J. Wensley, an engineer of the Westinghouse Electric and Manufacturing Company, and goes by the name of Televox. It you could dissect him you would find his inner workings much like those of your radio receiver, and little more complicated. Yet if you should establish him at home in your absence—which the inventor says is not at all impracticable—he would serve you as a trustworthy and obedient caretaker.

The mechanism consists primarily of a series of electrical relays, each sensitive to a sound of a certain pitch, and capable of translating that sound into specified mechanical action, such as opening and cloning the switches of electrical appliances. Each relay is actuated through a tuned electrical circuit responsive to vibration of a given frequency and no other, somewhat as the circuits of your radio can be tuned to a broadcasting station of a given wave length.

The mechanical man is not connected electrically to the telephone, but listens much as you would. His ear is a sensitive microphone placed close to the receiver. His voice is a loudspeaker close to the transmitter. And the language he speaks is a series of mechanically operated signal buzzes.

Experimentally, he has been made to understand and respond to words uttered by human voices, but for practical operation the language which spurs him to action has been simplified to three different sounds of different pitches. These sounds are made either by three tuned pitch pipes or, as in the New York demonstration, by three electrically operated tuning forks.

For illustration, imagine you are at the house a friend and are calling your home equipped with a Televox. In the ordinary way you telephone your home. Why, your phone rings. Televox lifts the receiver and utters a combination of buzzes which tell you that you have the right number.

Now you sound a single high note from the first pipe, which means, "Hello, get set for action." Televox stops buzzing and responds with a series of clicks, saying "All set: what do you want?".

Next you sound two short notes from the same pipe. These tell Televox to connect you with the switch on the electric oven. The reply is two short buzzes saying, "You are now connected," followed by a long buzz-z-z-z, which informs you that "the switch is open."

At this, you sound a deeper note on the second pitch pipe, meaning "Close the switch and start the oven." Immediately Televox ceases the long buzz, closes the switch, then replies with a short, snappy buzz informing you that the switch has been closed and the oven is going.

Next you may wish to inquire about the furnace, and with the first pitch pipe you sound three shrill notes. This means "Connect me with the furnace and tell me how hot it is." The reply is three short buzzes, telling you that the connection has been made, followed by a pause, then two more buzzes which say, "The furnace is pretty low."

So you blow four blasts from the same pitch pipe, meaning "Connect me with the switch operating the drafts." Televox replies with four buzzes, signifying that the connection has been made; then one short buzz informing you that the drafts are closed. With one blast from the second pitch pipe you order the drafts opened. Televox instantly opens them, then gives the long buzz to say that the job is done.

If nothing further requires attention, you blow the third pitch pipe, the lowest in tone of the three, which says "Good bye." Televox hangs up the receiver, and stands ready for the next call.

Each of these astonishing actions, as already explained, is accomplished by a different sound-sensitive relay. When the bell rings, the noise causes the first relay to lift the telephone hook and start the signal buzzer. The high note of the first pipe serves to connect any desired one of a number of relays, each of which has been arranged to control a certain operation. Thus, when the note is sounded twice, it moves a switch that connects relay number two, controlling the electric oven. When sounded three times, it connects relay number three, and so on, according to the number of operations for which the apparatus is designed. Each time a relay is connected, Televox gives a corresponding number of buzzes, indicating that the connection has been made. Moreover, it sounds an additional long or short buzz indicating whether the switch to be operated by the relay is open or closed.

The lower note of the second pitch pipe is the operating note; that is, it causes the connected relay to open or close the switch as may be required; also to report the fact by changing its long buzz to a short one, or vice versa. The deep note of the third pitch pipe simply causes Televox to quit work and ring off.

To demonstrate that Televox will respond to spoken words as well as musical notes, the inventor has set up in the Westinghouse laboratories at East Pittsburgh, Pa., a mechanism which will open a door to the call of "Open sesame!". The sounds of the voice, however, are too highly complicated for use in general practice. Still, a person with a good ear for music can get response from Televox by whistling or singing in the exact notes to which the relays of the machine are tuned.

Three of the machines already are in actual use in Washington, D. C., replacing watchmen at reservoirs. By their buzzes they tell the distant caller the height of water as shown by the gage in the reservoir, and also control the flow of water at his bidding…

The Herbert Televox robot became a national sensation, and was followed by a parade of increasingly advanced machines.

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D. 

The East St. Louis, Illinois Race Riots of 1917.

The city of East St. Louis, Illinois was the scene of one of the bloodiest race riots in the 20th century.  Racial tensions began to increase in February of 1917 when 470 African American workers were hired to replace white workers who had gone on strike against the Aluminum Ore Company.

A mob beats a Negro man in front of a streetcar, while the militia charged with restoring order stands by and does nothing.

The violence started on May 28th, 1917, shortly after a city council meeting was called. Angry white workers lodged formal complaints against black migrations to the Mayor of East St. Louis.  After the meeting had ended, news of an attempted robbery of a white man by an armed black man began to circulate through the city.  As a result of this news, white mobs formed and rampaged through downtown, beating all African Americans who were found.

The mobs also stopped trolleys and streetcars, pulling black passengers out and beating them on the streets and sidewalks.  Illinois Governor Frank O. Lowden eventually called in the National Guard to quell the violence, and the mobs slowly dispersed.  The May 28th disturbances were only a prelude to the violence that erupted on July 2, 1917.

Negroes Fleeing their homes as local whites look on. East St. Louis, July 2, 1917.

After the May 28th riots, little was done to prevent any further problems.  No precautions were taken to ensure white job security or to grant union recognition.  This further increased the already-high level of hostilities towards African Americans.  No reforms were made in the police force which did little to quell the violence in May.  Governor Lowden ordered the National Guard out of the city on June 10th, leaving residents of East St. Louis in an uneasy state of high racial tension.

On July 2, 1917, the violence resumed.  Men, women, and children were beaten and shot to death.  Around six o'clock that evening, white mobs began to set fire to the homes of black residents.  Residents had to choose between burning alive in their homes, or run out of the burning houses, only to be met by gunfire.  In other parts of the city, white mobs began to lynch African Americans against the backdrop of burning buildings.  As darkness came and the National Guard returned, the violence began to wane but did not come to a complete stop.

Six blocks of Walnut Street reduced to rubble from fires started during racially motivated riots in East St. Louis, IL.

In response to the rioting, the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) sent W.E.B. DuBois and Martha Gruening to investigate the incident.  They compiled a report entitled “Massacre at East St. Louis,” which was published in the NAACP’s magazine, The Crisis.  The NAACP also staged a silent protest march in New York City in response to the violence.  Thousands of well-dressed African Americans marched down Fifth Avenue, showing their concern about the events in East St. Louis.

Police and others look for bodies after the riot in East St. Louis. Local investigations were inept, making an accurate death count improbable. The bodies of some black victims were buried in a common grave. Others were thrown into Cahokia Creek, which ran between downtown and the riverfront railyards.

The Universal Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) also responded to the violence.  On July 8th, 1917, the UNIA’s president, Marcus Garvey said: “This is a crime against the laws of humanity; it is a crime against the laws of the nation, it is a crime against Nature and a crime against the God of all mankind.”  He also believed that the entire riot was part of a larger conspiracy against African Americans who migrated north in search of a better life: “The whole thing, my friends, is a bloody farce, and that the police and soldiers did nothing to stem the murder thirst of the mob is a conspiracy on the part of the civil authorities to condone the acts of the white mob against Negroes.”

A year after the riot, a Special Committee formed by the United States House of Representatives launched an investigation into police actions during the East St. Louis Riot. Investigators found that the National Guard and also the East St. Louis police force had not acted adequately during the riots, revealing that the police often fled from the scenes of murder and arson.  Some even fled from stationhouses and refused to answer calls for help. The investigation resulted in the indictment of several members of the East St. Louis police force.

VIDEO

East St. Louis Race Riots.
(PBS - KETC TV, St. Louis, Missouri)
Runtime [8:04]

Compiled by Neil Gale, Ph.D.

Chicago Radio Laboratory (CRL) [Zenith Radio Corporation] of Chicago, Illinois.

Among the hundreds of radio manufacturers that arose with the popularization of radio in the very early 1920s was the Chicago Radio Laboratory (CRL) in 1918, selling radios under the name "Z-Nith," later to become Zenith Radio Corporation. From the beginning, CRL/Zenith hung its hat on quality being more important than cost, and this philosophy allowed the company to grow and prosper in the fluid environment of the 1920s. By the onset of the Depression in 1929, Zenith was stable enough to weather the financial storm and emerge as a major manufacturing and marketing force.

The 9ZN garage building--the first Chicago Radio Laboratory factory in early 1919. Half of the 14' X 18' garage, located on Chicago's lakefront at 57XX Sheridan Road, Chicago, Illinois (land owned by the Edgewater Brach Hotel), was used for amateur station 9ZN and the other half was devoted to radio production. The sign on the side of the building reads: "9ZN, Testing & Demonstrating, equipped with CRL apparatus."

FOUNDERS
The founders of what was to become Zenith Radio Corporation were two radio amateurs, Ralph H.G. Mathews and Karl Hassel. The two were joined in business a bit later by Eugene F. McDonald, Jr., who contributed his considerable finances, publicity skills, and inventiveness. Soon after Zenith was formed, master businessman and accountant Hugh Robertson and legendary merchandiser Paul Klugh joined the group, forming the nucleus that eventually propelled Zenith Radio Corporation to a position as a major national manufacturer.

RALPH H.G. MATHEWS
Ralph Mathews built his first amateur radio station (9IK) in Chicago in 1912, soon after becoming interested in amateur radio. While attending Chicago's Lane Technical High School in 1913 and 1914, he perfected an aluminum saw-tooth, rotary spark gap disk with such a distinctive radio signal that it could be instantly identified by his amateur contacts. Already well-known in the amateur community, he began to accept requests from other amateurs to build equipment of his own design for them. Mathews graduated from high school in 1914 and began a commercial operation in 1915 to supplement his college costs. From 1915 until 1917, when World War I stopped all amateur activity, he covered most of his college and personal expenses by building and selling saw-tooth rotary gaps, radio receivers of various kinds, and other equipment for amateur purposes.

In March 1916, Mathews was appointed trunk line manager for the central region of the U. S. for the newly formed Amateur Radio Relay League (ARRL); in February 1917, he was elected to the Board of Directors for the group. About this time, his station call letters were changed to 9ZN, and with the increased prominence of the station, its operator and his call, his manufactured products became known as "9ZN Spark Gaps" or "9ZN Receivers."

Soon after the War started, Mathews enlisted in the U.S. Navy. He was assigned to the Naval Communications Division, and he met Karl Hassel while stationed at Great Lakes Naval Training Station in Illinois.

KARL HASSEL
Karl Hassel was born in Sharon, Pennsylvania, on January 25, 1896. He attended Westminster College from 1914 to 1915 and continued his studies in 1916 at the University of Pittsburgh. He had received his amateur license in 1912 and, at Pittsburgh, operated the university's 2 K.W., 500-cycle synchronous rotary spark gap station. This very efficient station operated with a special license 8XI and had an antenna 125 feet high and 600 feet long stretched between two buildings. It operated primarily on 425 meters and could work in a large geographic area because of its high antenna.

With the beginning of World War I, the government closed all and dismantled most radio stations. However, the influential University of Pittsburgh station was reserved as a government station. Hassel was one of three operators who took and passed the government examination and operated the station on a 24-hour-a-day basis.

Several published accounts of Hassel's involvement with the Pittsburgh University station state that the station became KDKA, the first licensed broadcast station. Indeed, this story is related to several of Hassel's obituary accounts. The Pittsburgh University station was dismantled in 1918 and did not become KDKA. Some confusion may have stemmed from the similarity of calls: the Pittsburgh University station was 8XI, while Frank Conrad's call (the station that developed into KDKA) was 8XK.

In early 1918 when the university station was dismantled, Hassel joined the Navy. He became a radio code instructor at Great Lakes Naval Training Station and met Ralph Mathews. The two worked together at Great Lakes for a few months, then both were transferred to the Naval Intelligence Service offices in Chicago's Commonwealth Edison Building.

When the War ended, they were held briefly before discharge with little to do. During this time, they decided to enter into a business partnership manufacturing amateur equipment. In early 1919, after being released from the Navy, they formed a formal partnership. By June 1919, along with friends M.B. Lowe and Larry Dutton, they built amateur equipment under Chicago Radio Laboratory (CRL).

THE CHICAGO RADIO LABORATORY
Hassel and Mathews initially lived in the Mathews family home at 1316 Carmen Avenue, and their first manufacturing location was a table in the kitchen in 1918. Operating as the Chicago Radio Laboratory, they produced a catalog in mid-1919. Mathews' father was involved in a printing company and helped them with the catalog. As Hassel said, "...it didn't cost us anything, or we wouldn't have had a catalog. I'm telling you, we didn't have any money."

At first, CRL operated as a retail mail-order supplier of amateur equipment, selling a variety of non-CRL apparatus as well as its own. The equipment featured in the first catalog was not stocked but manufactured or obtained as ordered.

Karl Hassel's account of the earliest days of production was recalled as: "We used Bakelite panel, and they were all engraved by hand with many a resulting blister. We used what we thought was a unique method of mounting the various parts on the Bakelite panel so no mounting screws would show. We used a double panel with the apparatus properly mounted on the back panel, and then the front panel was held on the back one by the pointer stops. I remember how we used to get a set together and discovered we had left off something, so we had to take it apart again to mount the part on the back panel. We were often on the point of discarding this idea and letting all the mounting screws show, but we never did."

Some of Mathews' impressions of the early manufacturing days, recalled in 1978, were:

"As to how many sets we made, I cannot give you a figure. We had 3 workmen building them by hand. We built them 12 at a time, which took about 2-3 weeks. The total amount I cannot give you the. Then, as the business grew, we started building about 20 at a time.

"Due to our small hand construction, we seldom had much of a stock, but they weren't built specifically to order unless something special was specified when we would make modifications to order."

EXPANSION
In mid-1919, manufacturing operations were moved to one-half of a 14' x 18' 2-car garage erected two blocks north of the Edgewater Beach Hotel at 5525 Sheridan Road. Mr. Dewey, the hotel manager and a friend of both Mathews and Hassel, allowed the unrestricted use of the hotel-owned land to understand that the building would be removed if the hotel ever needed the property. The other half of the garage was devoted to amateur station 9ZN.

A large antenna was erected, and with the big synchronous rotary spark-gap transmitter, 9ZN was soon heard worldwide. 9ZN was part of the first postwar transcontinental message relay on December 4, 1919 ([1AW to] 9ZN to L.F. to 6EA). In January [1921], 9ZN was involved in setting the cross-country record of 6.5 minutes for a round trip message 1AW to 9ZN to 5ZA to 6JD and return on the same route with help from 9LR. 9ZN was a featured visitation site during the first National ARRL Convention held August 31-September 3, 1921, at the Edgewater Beach Hotel. Mathews was the Director General (chairman) of the convention and toastmaster of the banquet.

By early 1921, the garage on Sheridan Road had become too small, and Chicago Radio Laboratory moved to a 3,000-square-foot rented factory at 6433 Ravenswood. The primary product of Chicago Radio Laboratory was a 2-component regenerative receiver. The top portion of the receiver, called the "Amplifigon," housed the detector and amplifier, and the bottom part, the "Paragon," was a tuner. CRL acquired the names Amplifigon and Paragon from the Adams-Morgan Company after it could not receive deliveries as agents for the company. Then, CRL began building and modifying the units themselves.

Karl Hassel could not recall whether the names were purchased or given to CRL. But, in a letter to friend Leo Gibbs on December 6, 1978, Mathew's recalled, "Adams -Morgan and I had the #1 and #2 licenses under Armstrong's patents. We did not copy their set; we bought them out at almost the same time, about six months after WW I. The 'Paragon' name was more or less the name of the circuit originally. I believe they were out with their model a few months before ours, and we originally used one of theirs at 9ZN, for a short time, much for comparison purposes. I can't give you a specific date for the first CRL Paragons and Amplifigons, but it was six months to a year after I got out of the Navy active duty at the end of WWI."

There appears to have been no legal action on behalf of either party. The 1919 Chicago Radio Laboratory catalog states that CRL sells the Adams-Morgan Paragon. The Paragon name was dropped in the 1920 CRL catalogs as modifications to the original design produced a new, and exclusively CRL, rendition of the product.

Since its equipment was built for the radio amateur, CRL placed its earliest advertisements in QST, the American Radio Relay League magazine, the first in June 1919. At an employee's suggestion, the QST advertisements soon began listing the 9ZN call followed by a small "ith," thus providing the famous trade name Z-Nith.

However, with the development of CRL's first broadcast receiver, the company began placing limited advertising in Chicago newspapers and a few trade publications. Growth, the associated moves to larger quarters, and the arrival of Commander McDonald combined at precisely the right time to lay a solid foundation for the rapid development of the fledgling company.

By late 1921, the popularity of Chicago Radio Laboratory equipment had driven demand to levels that were impossible to support from the small CRL factory on Ravenswood Avenue. In early 1922, Eugene F. McDonald, Jr., who had joined Mathews and Hassel in 1920 as General Manager of CRL, arranged for QRS Music Company at Kedzie Avenue and 48th Street to begin manufacturing CRL products. QRS was to use a combination of its own equipment and employees and those of CRL.

CRL produced only five radios a week in early 1922; by June 1922, it had 50 per week. Since radio sales and manufacturing were cyclical, with the peak period being September to January, a manufacturing output of 50 radios in June would indicate phenomenal growth for the small company.

McDonald formed Zenith Radio Corporation on June 30, 1923, as the marketing arm for the Z-Nith radios produced by Chicago Radio Laboratory. It was not until several years later that the two merged so that both manufacturing and marketing could be carried out by Zenith Radio Corporation. The original patent for the famous Zenith Lightning Bolt was filed on April 24, 1922.

TELEVISION PIONEER
Early television developments included some of the first prototype television receivers in the 1930s and experimental T.V. broadcasts, which began in 1939 and, at the request of the FCC, continued during World War II.

In 1948, Zenith introduced its first line of black-and-white T.V. sets. Among the many pioneering Zenith developments in the early days of television were the industry's first 21-inch, three-electron-gun rectangular color picture tube (1954), the first wireless T.V. remote control, "Flash-Matic" (1955) and then "Space Command," the first ultrasonic remote control, which revolutionized T.V. tuning worldwide for the next quarter-century (1956).

Zenith introduced its first color T.V. sets for consumers in 1961 and quickly established itself as a leading brand. The 1969 introduction of the revolutionary "Chromacolor" black-matrix (negative guardband) picture tube doubled the image brightness of color television and established a new standard of performance for the entire industry. The "EFL" (extended field length) electron gun (1976) and "System 3" modular T.V. chassis (1978) contributed to Zenith's continued strength in color television during the 1970s.

From "ZENITH RADIO" TO "ZENITH ELECTRONICS"
Mounting competitive pressures in its core consumer electronics business-led, Zenith used its broad engineering and marketing expertise to diversify as the company entered the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) components and cable television products businesses in the late 1970s.

In 1979, Zenith acquired the Heath Company, the world's largest manufacturer of build-it-yourself electronic kit products for hobbyists. Capitalizing on Heath's early entry into personal computers, Zenith formed Zenith Data Systems in 1980. Zenith's management built the computer business into a billion-plus-dollar operation by the late 1980s and sold the company in 1989.

By the mid-1980s, Zenith Cable Products (known as Zenith Network Systems) was a leading supplier of set-top boxes to the cable industry and a pioneer in cable modem technologies. The 1990s saw this business evolve into a supplier of digital set-top boxes for wired and wireless networks, and Zenith sold the Network Systems division in 2000.

The company marketed its last radio in 1982 (among other things, the end of the line for the famous Zenith "Trans-Oceanic" multi-band radio). Even as the company changed its name from "Zenith Radio Corporation" to "Zenith Electronics Corporation" in 1984, Zenith remained committed to audio engineering related to television. Zenith engineers co-developed the multichannel television sound (MTS) transmission system adopted by the industry for stereo T.V. broadcasts (1984). They received an Emmy (1986) for pioneering work developing MTS stereo T.V.

A major Zenith advance of the 1980s was the patented "flat tension mask" technology for high-resolution color video displays with perfectly flat screens, glare-free viewing, and superior performance, which earned the company a technical Emmy in 2001. Other noteworthy Zenith television innovations include T.V. receivers with "Sound by Bose" (1986) and "Dolby Surround Sound" (1988), as well as the first T.V.s with built-in closed caption decoders (1991), the first T.V.s with built-in on-screen electronic program guide (1994), and the first T.V.s with a track-ball operated remote control (1995).

DIGITAL HIGH-DEFINITION TELEVISION
Beginning in 1988, Zenith has been a leader in HDTV technologies. As one of HDTV's earliest proponents, Zenith developed several key digital technologies. Zenith was the first to propose a partially digital signal, pioneered the so-called "taboo" broadcast channels for the transition to HDTV, and was the first to use computer-friendly progressive scanning.

Zenith developed the VSB (vestigial sideband) digital transmission system, adopted in December 1996 by the FCC as the centerpiece of the ATSC (Advanced Television Systems Committee) digital television broadcast standard. In 1997, Zenith and other Digital HDTV Grand Alliance members earned a technical Emmy for pioneering developments behind the ATSC standard.

Zenith's first HDTV products, digital HDTV receivers/decoders, were introduced in 1998, followed by integrated Digital HDTV sets in 1999 and HD-compatible monitors in 2000. Zenith introduced the world's first 60-inch HDTV plasma display panel in 2001 and more affordable direct-view integrated HDTVs in 2002. Zenith digital-to-analog converter boxes supported the U.S. transition to all-digital broadcasting in 2008-09.

Compiled by Dr. Neil Gale, Ph.D.