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Founder of the Capehart phonograph works in Fort Wayne · United States Senator
On the record
Homer Earl Capehart was born 6 June 1897 at Algiers, in Pike County, Indiana, served as an Army sergeant in the First World War, and became the top salesman of the Holcomb and Hoke Manufacturing Company before going into business for himself. In 1928 he founded the Automatic Phonograph Corporation, and in 1929 he opened his factory in Fort Wayne, employing some 300 workers and producing twenty-five jukeboxes a day. Forced out by his investors in 1931, he formed the Packard Manufacturing Company in Fort Wayne in 1932, developed the Simplex automatic record-changing mechanism, and sold the device — and eventually the company — to Wurlitzer, serving as Wurlitzer's vice president and general sales manager through the 1930s. His old Fort Wayne company, meanwhile, became a division of the Farnsworth Television and Radio Corporation in 1939, the Capehart-Farnsworth line of Fort Wayne-made radios and televisions. Capehart converted the Packard works to war production in the Second World War, then ran for the United States Senate in 1944 and won. He served three terms (1945–1963), chaired the Banking and Currency Committee, and lost his 1962 re-election bid to Birch Bayh. He is remembered as the father of the jukebox industry. He died in Indianapolis on 3 September 1979 and is buried in Crown Hill Cemetery; the Minton-Capehart Federal Building in Indianapolis carries his name.
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- § 06 — people of the record
- § 05 — business
Sources: Biographical Directory of the United States Congress; Indiana Historical Society, Homer E. Capehart Papers biographical sketch; Museum of Broadcast Communications, Capehart Corporation entry.