The Forgotten Hero of Film: Joseph Tykociner's Work on Sound on Film at UIUC

By Emily Binder

“The only sound was the ticking of the machine. And I thought, now they have invented moving pictures, but where is the sound? That’s the moment when I got the idea that now, we can photograph together with the picture, the sound itself. And here’s where my ideas came in”. [1]

June 9, 1922, was the date of a meeting of the Urbana Section of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers unlike any other. This group of men met in lecture room 100 of the Physics Building at the University of Illinois and found a collection of strange instruments strewn across the table. Here, the first-ever public demonstration of sound on film was presented.[2] This meeting demonstrated a new technology that ultimately changed the way movies were enjoyed forever.

On October 12th, 1877, one of the greatest engineers of the 20th century and the Father of Sound on Film was born in Vlaclawek, Poland.[3] Joseph T. Tykociner was involved in electrical engineering feats ranging from spreading radio connections around Europe and across the Atlantic to conducting some of the first studies that led to the invention of radar to measuring gasses and finding a way to put sound on film. Despite his impressive resume, Tykociner remains largely unrecognized for his achievements. Tykociner spent much of his early career hopping between Europe and the United States, learning about electrical engineering and aiding in connecting the world via radio signals. He was on a trip to New York City in the 1890s when he saw his first film and was disappointed to discover there was no sound.[4]

After this, Tykociner became determined to find a way to put sound on film. In 1896, Tykociner moved to the United States in pursuit of a way to capture sound on film; he found work in electrical engineering at the Electric Car Lighting Company and took classes at the Cooper Union to prepare for German engineering college.[5] Tykociner returned to Europe to take classes at the Höheres Technisches Institut in Köthen, Germany in 1897.[6] His time in New York had altered Tykociner’s future trajectory.

While in New York, Tykociner recalled seeing a sign to look at Edison’s inventions and got the idea to pair sound with picture. His goal from the outset had been to photograph a light source that moved with sound. He stated that he had been unable to find a good amplifier, but this idea remained in the back of his mind while he pursued other electrical engineering opportunities.[7]

One of Tykociner’s early positions as an electrical engineer was on the team at the Marconi Telegraph Company that worked to send the first radio broadcasts overseas. In 1904, Tykociner helped the Russian Tzar to establish a radio connection between Russian Naval Fleets in the Baltic and Black Seas just before the Russo-Japanese War broke out. After the Bolshevik Revolution broke out, Tykociner returned to Poland where he worked on improving telegraph systems in his native country.[8] Tykociner’s work with radio signals helped him to better understand how to capture sound as he continued in his free time to work toward putting sound on film.

Tykociner returned to the United States in 1921 where he was quickly offered a job at the University of Illinois. He became the first research professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering.[9] Tykociner played an essential role in moving the department from a technical school toward the research institute it is known for today.

Only ten months after arriving in Champaign-Urbana, Tykociner made a public demonstration of sound on film. June 9th, 1922 saw the first sound on film when Tykociner presented his film featuring his wife ringing a bell and his colleague, E. B. Paine, reading the Gettysburg Address.[10] While the sound quality was not flawless, this was the first time anyone had publicly demonstrated that sound could be recorded and replayed in synch with film.

Tykociner used a photoelectric cell invented by fellow University of Illinois professor, Jakob Kunz.[11] He had different densities of film that ran alongside the picture film. A 1962 article in the Daily Illini celebrating the fortieth birthday of sound on film describes the technique: “His is the dominant system today. A variable-density sound track is alongside the picture images on the film. Sound is recorded at a fixed distance from action with which it is synchronized.”[12]

The news of Tykociner’s public demonstration spread around the world. On July 30th, 1922 the New York World published a page spread of Tykociner with his invention.[13] By August of 1922, news had spread to Alaska with the Cordova Daily Times published in Cordova, Alaska printing an article detailing Tykociner’s invention.[14] News of sound on film spread quickly, yet other inventors and the University’s involvement ultimately resulted in Tykociner’s invention floundering.

Tykociner’s invention ultimately remained non-commercial because of University politics. Before Tykociner had arrived in Champaign-Urbana, a different professor in the Department of Electrical Engineering had left the University of Illinois for a job at Westinghouse Electric, taking his patents with him. Tykociner had been recommended to the University by Westinghouse Electric in hopes of rectifying this previous conflict.[15] This complex relationship ultimately resulted in the University holding all patents for Tykociner’s inventions, as they had funded the experiments.[16] Tykociner, in return, asked that a department would be created to promote research on sound pictures and start a center that could produce educational films. Due to the University holding the rights to Tykociner’s inventions, he became inextricably linked to the University of Illinois and his findings did not become commercialized.[17]

While the University of Illinois continues to herald Joseph Tykociner as the inventor of sound on film, much of the rest of the world recognizes other scientists’ successes instead due to their achievements in commercializing sound on film. Lee De Forest was the first to patent a soundtrack that was photographically recorded on the side of a film strip; he worked with Theodore Case to improve his equipment and build on their existing patents. A few years later, in 1919, three German scientists, Josef Engl, Hans Vogt, and Joseph Massolle patented what they called the tri-Ergon system. They held a public screening for their invention just a few months after Tykociner’s, in September 1922. Their system quickly became the dominant method for putting sound on film in Europe. The next year, Danish engineers, Axel Petersen and Arnold Poulsen patented putting sound on a separate sound strip. De Forest and Case were busy marketing their inventions to Hollywood until their partnership collapsed. Case joined Fox Films in 1926 to put what he called Movietone in films created by that studio. Fox later bought the Tri-Ergon system but found it incompatible and inferior to Movietone.[18] De Forest’s invention ultimately made it into the movie industry, although De Forest was now separated from his technology.[19] Tykociner’s method was the first to be publicly demonstrated, but it was never commercialized because of his link to the University.

The University itself never tried to commercialize Tykociner’s invention due to Hollywood’s initial skepticism at this new concept: “When first announced, a leader in the motion picture industry declared that sound pictures were impractical because movies were an illusion of action, and to add the illusion of sound, he said- two illusions simultaneously- would be more than the human mind could bear!”[20] When Hollywood eventually decided to test out a talking movie in the 1927 film, Jazz Singer, they used a phonograph to play sound at the same time the picture played, but the picture and sound could fall out of sync with each other. Instead of using the various methods that had been invented over the previous decade, where the sound and picture were married to each other, Hollywood used a technique Thomas Edison had invented almost half a century prior.[21] George Eastman, the man who revolutionized the use of the camera, claimed that “The public won’t accept it,”[22] when talking about sound on film. This initial pushback caused the University to refuse to give Tykociner any more funding to put into sound on film and pushed him to move on to other research.[23]

While University politics had originally played a role in denying Tykociner credit for his work, Tykociner’s innovation in the field of film remains a proud part of the history of the University of Illinois with the Daily Illini publishing articles reminiscing on his invention throughout the rest of his career. In 1944, the Daily Illini stated “Talking pictures which revolutionized the motion picture industry were first conceived by J.T. Tykociner, research professor of electrical engineering.”[24] The newspaper shows their pride in Tykociner’s achievement and only recognizes his achievement even as the rest of the world picks other inventors to champion for the invention of sound on film.

After moving beyond film, Tykociner continued to explore new areas of science and his research continued to shape the world we know today. In 1933 along with Professor Jacob Kunz, Tykociner received a grant from the National Research Council to continue their work on determining the magnetic movement of hydrogen. The two professors had been previously working on studying the magnetic properties of gasses and had to build their equipment before being able to study the gasses themselves.[25] Tykociner also studied microwaves and other aspects of electricity. He worked with antennas and discovered that his antenna signals could be blocked by the cows on university pastures, this discovery eventually helped to shape the invention of radar.[26]

In 1964, Tykociner received a Merit Award from the National Electronics Conference. He was only the third person to receive this award in its twenty-year history.[27] He remained at the forefront of scientific research for his entire career, coming out of retirement several times to continue his work.

Tykociner’s final research was into the field of research itself. He named this new field zetetics. After initially retiring in 1949, Tykociner made it known he planned to get into “the broad philosophy of scientific research and of scientific education.”[28] He published a book on Zetetics in 1959 and came out of retirement in 1962 to teach classes in his new field. In Tykociner’s words zetetics studies “the totality of recorded, systematized knowledge as related to such methods of research, mental process, and psychological factors and environmental conditions as lead to new problems, stimulate creative imagination enhance selective thinking, and generate original, fruitful ideas.”[29] Instead of just one field, Tykociner’s new interest was focused on “the whole of human knowledge and culture- arts, sciences, humanities, and engineering.”[30] He moved from one small aspect of an emerging field to connecting all research and inventing the research of research as a whole.

While Thomas Edison remains a giant in early electric engineering, Tykociner’s legacy is much more obscure. He spent much of his life developing radio communications systems, but for a brief ten-month period, he achieved his dream of bringing sound to film. Because of Hollywood’s pushback and the University’s politics, Tykociner never received wide acclaim for his technique of uniting sound and film which had become the primary method used by the movie industry. Tykociner dedicated his life to science and spent his last years focused on creating a science of research to unify all knowledge similar to the way he unified sound and picture.

Emily Binder was an intern at the Champaign County History Museum. This will be her first published article with our organization. If you would like to learn more about Champaign County History please follow us on our blog or view some of our Omeka Exhibits.

Photo Credits

Image 1: Bain News Service, Publisher. Jos. T. Tykociner. , ca. 1920. [Between and Ca. 1925] Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014714942/.

Image 2: Bain News Service, Publisher. Tykociner Film of Voice. , ca. 1922. Photograph. https://www.loc.gov/item/2014714943/.

Image 3: Joseph Tykociner in the lab. Spring, 1922. University of Illinois Archives, 0002224. https://archon.library.illinois.edu/archives/index.php?p=digitallibrary/digitalcontent&id=4197.

Image 4: News Clipping about Joseph Tykociner and Sound on Film. July 30, 1922. University of Illinois Archives, 0003328. https://archon.library.illinois.edu/archives/index.php?p=digitallibrary/digitalcontent&id=3418

Image 5: Joseph Tykociner and Exhibit. 1964. University of Illinois Archives, 0002225. https://archon.library.illinois.edu/archives/index.php?p=digitallibrary/digitalcontent&id=4198.

Image 6: Joseph Tykociner Points to a Diagram. 1969. University of Illinois Archives, 00002226. https://archon.library.illinois.edu/archives/index.php?p=digitallibrary/digitalcontent&id=4199.