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.
