James A. Jenney and Charles D. Jenney: the arc-light patents

1881–1882 · THE FATHER, THE SON, AND THE LAMP

The patents: James A. Jenney came to Fort Wayne in 1881 to manufacture an arc lamp and a small electric dynamo he had invented; the History Center's exhibit record has him demonstrating the city's first arc light in a warehouse in September 1881, with the Jenney Electric Light Company founded by local investors that fall. The company's foundation documents are the two men's patents. The 1889 Valley of the Upper Maumee River states it directly: the patents the works used "were at first chiefly those of James A. Jenney, and his son Charles D. Jenney." The patent record itself shows Charles D. Jenney's arc-lamp patent No. 255,999 of 4 April 1882, and the joint patent No. 261,815, "Electric-Arc Lamp," filed 11 March 1882 and granted 25 July 1882 to James A. Jenney and Charles D. Jenney, "of Fort Wayne, Indiana," assigned to the Fort Wayne Electric Light Company of the same place — an improved automatic regulator for the carbon arc lamp, the device that kept an arc lamp feeding its carbons and holding its light without an attendant. Charles D. Jenney went on patenting in the field (an electric switch, No. 577,037, in 1897, by then of Indianapolis). The firm the patents founded — its organization, its 1883 night baseball game, its passage through Thomson-Houston to General Electric in 1899 — is the Business section's entry; what belongs here is that Fort Wayne's electrical age began, unusually literally, as a family patent portfolio.

Sources:

1. U.S. Patent No. 261,815 (25 July 1882), the patent itself — James A. Jenney and Charles D. Jenney of Fort Wayne, assignors to the Fort Wayne Electric Light Company; its text citing Charles D. Jenney's No. 255,999 of 4 April 1882.
2. Valley of the Upper Maumee River (1889), Vol. II, "Manufacturing Industries" — the works' patents "at first chiefly those of James A. Jenney, and his son Charles D. Jenney."
3. The History Center, virtual exhibit (display piece 2014.2.1) — Jenney's September 1881 warehouse demonstration; the company's founding that fall; the Broadway plant of 1886.
4. Kevin Leininger, "Light of the world," News-Sentinel, 19 December 1982 — Jenney's 1881 arrival to manufacture the arc lamp and dynamo he had invented.
5. U.S. Patent No. 577,037 (16 February 1897), via Google Patents — Charles D. Jenney's electric switch.