Title: Cyril M. Jansky Papers
Inclusive Dates: 1917-1974

Creator:

• Jansky, Cyril Moreau, 1895-1975

Call Number: Mss 745; Audio 1202A; CA 857; AC 524

Quantity: 6.0 c.f. (15 archives boxes and 1 flat box), 15 tape recordings, and 2 films

Repository:

Wisconsin Historical Society, Division of Library, Archives, and Museum Collections

Archival Locations:

Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)

COLLECTION MAY BE STORED OFF-SITE: see catalog entry to request materials and for additional information.

Abstract:

Papers of Cyril Moreau Jansky, a radio pioneer and consulting engineer, consisting of correspondence and memoranda; minutes; interviews, speeches, and writings (some also in recorded form); reports; reference material; sound recordings, and films. Pertaining to his early career are blueprints and a thesis on his vacuum tube research, recorded interviews, and correspondence on reception of the signal of WHA, “the oldest station in the nation;” teaching notes from the University of Minnesota and correspondence concerning the development of radio by several Minnesota companies; minutes, reports, and correspondence (some with Herbert Hoover and Frank Kellogg) concerning radio conferences and the Radio Act of 1927; a transcript of testimony in support of his unsuccessful appointment to the Federal Radio Commission, and a diary of radio work in Great Britain during World War II. Records of Jansky & Bailey, consulting engineers, consist of incomplete administrative records and client reports by Jansky and others concerning station coverage and the marine uses of radio. Particularly extensive are reports and films concerning work for Lake Carriers Association. Also included is an extensive file of speeches and articles, financial and legal papers, information on various organizations and societies to which Jansky belonged, and miscellaneous family correspondence.

Language: English

URL to cite for this finding aid: http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-mss00745

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Radio pioneer Cyril Moreau Jansky was born on June 28, 1895 in Delton, Michigan. In 1908, his parents Cyril M. and Nellie Moreau Jansky moved the family to Madison, Wisconsin, where the elder Jansky taught electrical engineering at the University of Wisconsin.

After graduating from Madison High in 1913, Jansky attended the University of Wisconsin and earned two degrees in physics, a B.S. in 1917 and an M.S. in 1919. While still in college, Jansky began his long association with radio. Working on radiotelephony and radiotelegraphy under the guidance of Professor Earle M. Terry, Jansky was instrumental in the early broadcasts of station 9XM (WHA). In addition to conducting radio reception tests, he constructed by hand the vacuum tubes required for operation of the station.

After receiving his master's degree, Jansky became an assistant in the Department of Physics at Madison. In 1920, Jansky accepted the position of associate professor of radio engineering at the University of Minnesota. Besides teaching and helping to establish the college radio station (9XI), he also served as a consultant on matters concerning broadcasting facilities and operations.

During the early 1920s, Jansky wrote and spoke extensively on station broadcast coverage. Because of this expertise he was invited to participate in four radio conferences called by Secretary of Commerce Herbert Hoover between 1922 and 1925. The conferences, which addressed the allocation of broadcast frequencies, resulted in the passage of the Radio Act of 1927. In 1929, Jansky was nominated by President Calvin Coolidge to represent the Midwest as a member of the Federal Radio Commission. However, Congress adjourned without confirming his appointment.

After two years of independent consulting in Washington, D.C., Jansky began a long and successful partnership with Stuart Bailey in 1930. Bailey, a former Department of Commerce radio engineer, had also been a Jansky student at the University of Minnesota. Jansky & Bailey initially represented radio stations before the Federal Communications Commission and conducted radio coverage surveys. They later enlarged the scope of their work to include systems engineering and research and development.

When the company was incorporated in 1953, Jansky became the chairman of the board. Six years later, the company became a division of the Atlantic Research Corporation. Jansky also attended important international conferences and wrote many papers and reports on the subject.

Throughout his career, Jansky was an active member of numerous professional societies and organizations. He helped to organize the National Association of Broadcasters and in 1934 served as president of the Institute of Radio Engineers. In 1957 Jansky received a distinguished service award from the National Association of Radio and Television Broadcasters. He was also honored many times by the University of Wisconsin for his accomplishments in the field of radio and for his association with WHA, the “oldest station in the nation.”

Jansky was married to Marguerite Sammis in 1919; he died in March 1975.

The Jansky collection, while not large, documents his professional career from his years as a student at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to his chairmanship of Jansky & Bailey, a radio consulting firm. The facets of Jansky's career that gave him his greatest prominence--his early involvement with WHA, early radio legislation, and his work on station broadcast coverage and marine radio--are fortunately also the aspects of his career best covered by the collection. Less complete are the files detailing Jansky's work as a consultant on radio matters. The relative scarcity of Jansky & Bailey files is due to the fact that the papers were part of approximately eleven cubic feet of files kept in Jansky's home, not records from the company office. From the files at his home, a representative of the Mass Communications History Center selected approximately five cubic feet for transfer to the Historical Society. Records of a technical nature were consciously excluded.

The collection consists of correspondence and memoranda, minutes, speeches and writings, reports, reference material, recordings, films, and photographs arranged into four general categories: personal and biographical material, speeches and writings, early career material, and partnership records.

The PERSONAL AND BIOGRAPHICAL MATERIAL consists of family and miscellaneous correspondence primarily dating from Jansky's early life, financial records from the same period, files pertaining to membership in various professional organization and societies, honors, and other biographical miscellany such as diplomas and a family tree. Among the few personal insights provided by the collection is the correspondence filed here on radio matters which reveal that Jansky worked closely with clients. He devoted a considerable amount of time to marine navigation and radio communication on projects carried out with his father. Even these letters, which date from the period 1920-1924, are professional in character, for Jansky and his father shared research and business interests in radio development. More useful are the 1958 and 1968 interviews concerning Jansky's recollections of the early days of radio at WHA and in Minnesota.

SPEECHES AND WRITINGS contain a fairly complete collection of Jansky's professional papers dating from his master's thesis of 1919 about WHA (Construction of High Power Vacuum Tubes and Their Uses in Radio Telephony) to the late 1950s. Technical reports written under his name for clients of Jansky & Bailey are filed with the Partnership Records. Frequent subjects of Jansky speeches were radio equipment, the uses of radio, frequency allocation policies, and broadcast coverage measurement techniques. The category titled “material for book” is composed of various articles written by Jansky and others. However, the collection contains no evidence that Jansky ever wrote a book.

The EARLY CAREER MATERIAL covers Jansky's work as a researcher and a teacher at both the University of Wisconsin-Madison and University of Minnesota, his involvement with early radio legislation, the consulting he did prior to the formation of Jansky & Bailey, and his employment by the War Department during World War II. The University of Wisconsin-Madison file contains blueprints of his vacuum tubes and correspondence with the U.S. Army Signal Corps and scientists concerning the reception of the WHA signal. Jansky's work in Minnesota is documented by teaching materials and reports concerning the development of the university radio station and correspondence with the Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, the Washburn Crosby Company, and others concerning development of radio. Files on the radio conferences, which Jansky attended during the 1920s, are documented with minutes, agenda, notes, reports, and correspondence with Herbert Hoover, Frank Kellogg, and others. Related to this is a transcript of Jansky's appointment hearing testimony before the Federal Radio Commission. Files on his War Department work during World War II include a detailed typescript diary of his activities in Great Britain during 1942.

PARTNERSHIP RECORDS are primarily composed of Jansky & Bailey material, although a limited amount of information concerning three other business ventures are present. Although the Jansky & Bailey materials are most extensive, they are by no means the complete records of the company. A group of administrative files contain photographic documentation of company facilities and offices, a recording of ceremonies marking the dedication of new corporate offices, and some information on the legal and administrative structure of the company. The project files primarily consist of final reports (some by Jansky himself and some by other staff members) to various Jansky & Bailey clients, particularly Radio Free Europe, Radio Liberty, and the Lake Carriers Association. Also included are two recorded talks by Colonel J.D. Parker, a Jansky associate.

Acquisition Information

Presented by Mr. and Mrs. Cyril Moreau Jansky, and Stuart Bailey, Washington, D.C., 1970-1979. Accession Number: MCHC70-69, MCHC76-26, MCHC79-59

Processing Information

Processed by James Russo and Carolyn J. Mattern, 1988.

Mss 745	Series: Personal and Biographical Material
Box   1 Folder   1	Vitas and biographical miscellany
Box   1 Folder   2	Oral history outline and information, 1959-1966
Audio 1202A	Recorded interviews
1202A/1	Interview on the Tex and Jinx NBC program on the early history of radio and the radio conferences of the 1920s, 1957 April 10
1202A/9	Interview by H. Engel on the early history of WHA, 1958 October 27
1202A/6-8	Interview of Jansky on his early experiences at WHA and at Minnesota, AM and FM broadcasting, regulatory conference and other topics, 1968 November 5
Mss 745	Correspondence
Box   1 Folder   3	Family, 1919-1924, 1964, undated
Box   1 Folder   4-5	Miscellaneous and travel correspondence, 1920-1970, undated
	Financial and legal papers
Box   1 Folder   6	Personal financial records, 1919, 1925-1928, 1932
Box   1 Folder   7-8	Consulting accounts, 1926-1930
Box   1 Folder   9	Miscellaneous financial correspondence, 1920-1964, undated
Box   1 Folder   10	Leases, 1922-1929
Box   16 Folder   1	Home blueprints, 1929
Box   1 Folder   11	Honors, 1962-1970
Box   1 Folder   12	Notebook, 1920
	Organizations and societies
Box   1 Folder   13	Association of Federal Communications Consulting Engineers, 1948-1973
Box   1 Folder   14	American Institute of Electrical Engineers, 1930-1948
Box   1 Folder   15	American Radio Relay League, 1924-1970
Box   2 Folder   2	Institution of Electrical Engineers, 1966-1968
Box   2 Folder   3	Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, 1965-1975
Box   2 Folder   4	International Broadcasters Society, 1968
Box   2 Folder   5	Institute of Radio Engineers, 1920-1969
Box   2 Folder   6	Operations research conference, 1954-1955
Box   2 Folder   7	Journal of Air Law, 1931-1933
Box   2 Folder   8	National Association of Broadcasters, 1928-1961
Box   2 Folder   1	University of Wisconsin, Class of '17, 1947-1967
Box   2 Folder   9	Miscellaneous organizations, 1928-1948
	Series: Speeches and Writings	⇧
Box   3 Folder   1	Thesis, 1919
Box   3 Folder   2-3	1922-1928
Box   3 Folder   4-5	EMF Yearbook, 1920-1926, undated
Box   3 Folder   6	“Idea Book,” 1925
Box   3 Folder   7-8	1930-1934
Box   3 Folder   9	Correspondence regarding advertising talks, 1934
Box   3 Folder   10	1935-1937
Box   4 Folder   1-3	1941-1959, undated
Box   4 Folder   4	Material for book
Box   4 Folder   5	Reference material
	Series: Early Career Material	⇧
	University of Wisconsin-Madison
Box   4 Folder   6	Correspondence regarding employment, 1917-1920
	WHA
Box   4 Folder   7	Correspondence regarding radio tests, circuits, 1917-1920
Box   4 Folder   8	Blueprints, picture guide, undated
Box   4 Folder   9	Correspondence regarding age of WHA, 1953-1968
Box   4 Folder   10	40th anniversary, 1958
Box   5 Folder   1	50th anniversary, 1968-1969
1202A/2	Recording of anniversary ceremonies during which Jansky received a distinguished service award and made brief remarks, 1969 May 23
Mss 745	University of Minnesota
Box   5 Folder   2	Correspondence regarding employment, 1919-1926
Box   5 Folder   3	Correspondence and notes regarding University of Minnesota radio, 1920-1928
Box   5 Folder   4	Student radio research, 1924-1925
Box   5 Folder   5	Lab notes, undated
	Course notes
Box   5 Folder   6	Circuits, undated
Box   5 Folder   7	Electron theory, undated
Box   5 Folder   8	Radio engineering, undated
Box   5 Folder   9	Receiving set design, undated
Box   5 Folder   10	Transients, 1927
Box   5 Folder   11	Photography
	Consulting
	Bureau of Standards
Box   6 Folder   1	Correspondence, 1921-1923
Box   16 Folder   2	Blueprints
Box   6 Folder   2-3	Minneapolis Chamber of Commerce, 1920-1926, undated
	Gold Medal radio service
Box   6 Folder   4	Agreement, finances, 1925
Box   6 Folder   5	Broadcasts, 1924-1927
Box   6 Folder   6	Progress reports, 1925
Box   6 Folder   7	Technical drawings, specifications, 1925
	Petroleum work
Box   6 Folder   8	Correspondence, 1928-1929
Box   16 Folder   3	Map
Box   6 Folder   9	Miscellaneous consulting work, 1920-1930
Box   15 Folder   1	WGES-WGN interference study, 1926-1927
	Radio conferences and legislation
	, 1922 radio conference
Box   7 Folder   1	Agenda, minutes
Box   7 Folder   2	Correspondence, reports
Box   7 Folder   3	, 1923 radio conference correspondence and reports
	, 1924 radio conference
Box   7 Folder   4	Correspondence
Box   7 Folder   5	Reports
Box   7 Folder   6	Correspondence with Frank Kellogg regarding legislation, 1921-1924
Box   7 Folder   7	, 1927 Radio Act and conference
	Federal Radio Commission
Box   7 Folder   8	Appointment hearings transcripts and clippings, 1929
Box   8 Folder   1	Correspondence regarding appointment, 1929
	War Department
Box   8 Folder   2	Operational analysis, 1942-1943
Box   8 Folder   3	Trip to England, 1942
	Series: Partnership Records	⇧
	Advanced Technology Systems
Box   8 Folder   4	Correspondence and report, 1969-1973
Box   8 Folder   5	Report, 1974
Box   8 Folder   6	cmi Data Ways and Telecommunication Consultants International, 1967, undated
	Jansky and Bailey
	General administrative files
Box   8 Folder   7	Advertising brochures and facilities, undated
1202A/3-5	Dedication ceremonies marking the dedication of new facilities shared by Jansky and Bailey and Atlantic Research, including remarks by Jansky, Bailey, and others, 1955
Mss 745 Box   8 Folder   8	Employee material, 1960-1961
Box   8 Folder   9	Memos, 1955-1957
1202A/15	Jansky and Bailey planning session, undated, for Michigan police communications network project and dictated memo regarding Mycom and digitized voice transmissions, , undated
Mss 745 Box   9 Folder   1	Partnership agreements, insurance, employee lists
	Atlantic Research Corporation
Box   9 Folder   2	Agreement, stock options
Box   10 Folder   1	Miscellaneous material, 1961-1971
Box   10 Folder   1A	Project lists, 1934-1955
Box   10 Folder   2	Correspondence with secretary Dorothy Dietrich, 1958-1960
	Project files
	General files
Box   10 Folder   3	Broadcast allocations, 1943-1948
Box   10 Folder   4	Carnegie Institute, Jansky testimony and report, 1934-1939
Box   10 Folder   5	Educational broadcasting and WHA, 1960, 1968
	Reports and papers by Jansky and Bailey employees
Box   13 Folder   6-7	General, 1953-1970
Box   14 Folder   1	Radio Free Europe, 1954
Box   14 Folder   2-3	Radio Liberty, 1954-1962, undated
Box   14 Folder   4-7	Standard coverage, 1930s-1949
Box   14 Folder   8	Miscellaneous charts, graphs, maps, 1930s-1949
Box   16 Folder   4	Oversized materials
	Marine work
Box   10 Folder   6-8	Comité International Radio-Maritime (CIRM), 1961-1974
Box   10 Folder   9	DECCA, Lorain, 1963-1968
Box   11 Folder   1-2	International Telecommunication Union (ITU), 1959-1968
1202A/13	Recording of proceedings concerning marine communications, 1959
	Lake Carriers Association (LCA)
Mss 745 Box   11 Folder   3-6	General papers, 1954-1972, undated
	Radio Technical Commission for Marine Services (RTCM)
Box   11 Folder   7	1947-1972
Box   12 Folder   1-2	1973-1974
	Films
CA 859	Great Lakes Miracle, 1953
AC 524	[Launching of the William Sykes], circa 1950
1202A/12	Broadcast by Jansky and Bailey's floating laboratory on the Great Lakes, undated
Mss 745 Box   12 Folder   3	U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Power Squadrons, 1962, 1968, 1970
	Jansky files
	Marine papers and reports by Jansky
Box   12 Folder   4-6	1939-1954
Box   13 Folder   1-4	1955-1969, undated
Box   13 Folder   5	Miscellaneous marine correspondence, 1966-1970
	Miscellany
1202A/14	Session of an unidentified international conference concerning international broadcast standards, 1969 Note: In Spanish?
1202A/10	Col. J.D. Parker talk concerning the history of radar training in Great Britain, the use of simulators, and their technical requirements, undated
1202A/11	Col. J.D. Parker talk on European television broadcast standards, especially the 405 line system, undated