Associated Press Wirephoto, Model 6000, S/N 6148
Interestingly enough, we are currently handling the archive of a man who whose invention changed the face of newspapers in the 1930’s and who also invented the Rayfoto technology which allowed radio listeners to print on demand their favorite radio programs in newspaper form. Here is the story of Austin G. Cooley:
At the age of 16, Austin Cooley installed the first radio station at Little Port Walter, Alaska. At the age of 22, Cooley made his first experiments in the electrical transmission of photographs as a student at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.
He invented the “rayphoto”, or radio photograph which was the precursor to the Fax machine. In 1928 Radiovision Corp. published Cooley’s How to Receive Radio Pictures at Home an inside look at “the first authentic radio picture apparatus.” The rayphoto system would attach to your radio and essentially turn the radio program you were listening to into a newspaper. Think of it as an early print on demand technology. Many had high hopes for this new technology. Beginning in 1927 RADIO BROADCAST magazine ran a series on Cooley’s “Rayfoto” stating “the subject of radio photograph reception is so large that it can be discussed only in part on each article” and “the development of the Cooley ‘Rayfoto’ system opens for the first time to the American experimenter an important ‘next step’ in radio development.” Unfortunately, the technology was too costly and slow for mass adoption and with television just around the corner there was nowhere for the technology to go.
Workmen Painting. Signed D. A. McKenna, 1957