Background
James Harris Rogers was born in Franklin, Tennessee, United States His father was a clergyman and chaplain during the Civil War on the staff of Gen. Leonidas Polk
inventor chief electrician experimentator
James Harris Rogers was born in Franklin, Tennessee, United States His father was a clergyman and chaplain during the Civil War on the staff of Gen. Leonidas Polk
James's earliest education was received from private tutors.
In 1866 his father, having given up the ministry, took the family to Europe, and for a year young Rogers studied in St. Charles College, London.
From his earliest boyhood he was intensely interested in the science of electricity and through study and experimentation soon acquired a knowledge of the subject remarkable for one so young. Beginning his research work while living in France in 1867, he continued it in New York, where the family took up residence in 1868, and later in Peekskill, New York. Here, in cooperation with an older brother, he perfected a system of printing telegraph patented August 20, 1872. Rogers continued his experimental work in New York for the succeeding five years, devising a number of interesting improvements in multiplex telegraphy. In 1877, when twenty-one years old, he went to Washington, D. C. , where, upon the recommendation of Joseph Henry, secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, he was appointed chief electrician of the United States Capitol. He carried on this work for the next six years, at the same time pursuing his electrical researches, one of the most interesting results of which was the invention of a system of secret telephony, for which Rogers received United States patents granted December 20, 1881 (No. 251, 292) and January 10, 1882 (No. 252, 257). Upon resigning his position at the Capitol in 1882, he devoted his full time to research in Washington, eventually, 1895, establishing a laboratory at Hyattsville, Maryland. , where he lived until his death. In the course of these years he was granted some fifty patents for inventions relating to telephony, telegraphy, electric lighting, high frequency currents, and the transmitting of sounds through metal pipes. Probably the most interesting and valuable of these inventions was his system of printing telegraphy, for which he was granted patents between 1887 and 1894, and his underground and subsea radio transmission system, for which he received patents between 1917 and 1921. His printing telegraph system was in many respects a forerunner of the modern method in that a key operator was eliminated and messages were written on a typewriter. By the use of the principle of visual synchronism messages were transmitted at what was then phenomenal speed--approximately two hundred words a minute. About 1908 Rogers turned his attention to wireless telegraphy and to the possibility of transmission through the earth and sea. After undertaking a bit of experimental work at that time, he turned to other things until 1916, when he resumed his investigations and made such progress that with his underground antenna he could pick up messages from across the ocean. Although his discoveries had not yet been patented, in 1917 he offered them to the government. His offer was accepted and patents were issued to him later. Thereafter, until his death, he continued his researches in this same field, considerably interrupted, however, by litigation instituted to defend his patent rights. Among other recognitions of his work, he was awarded the Inventor's Medal of the Maryland Academy of Sciences.
He never married.
