Engineering Hall of Fame:

John V. L. Hogan and the Birth of Radio and Radio History

By Michael N. Geselowitz

What do technical professional society officers, engineers interested in technological history, and the listening audience of New York's classical radio station WQXR have in common? In the language of market researchers, "their demographic tends to skew old." More than that, though, they also share a Wunderkind by the name of John Vincent Lawless Hogan, who played a formative role in and among each of these groups.

Even now, in our age of rapidly changing technology mastered by the 20-somethings of Silicon Valley and Silicon Alley, new technical fields are growing out of existing disciplines with existing professional structures that are headed by éminences grises. In fact, it is possible to hold discussions about which of several 60- and 70-year-old engineers "invented the Internet." 

The IEEE History Center is often approached with the question of who invented this or that. As historians, we try to explain that invention is a complicated, multifaceted process seldom undertaken by individuals in isolation. Unfortunately, this answer is usually unsatisfactory. As you'll soon read, John V. L. Hogan was a pioneer here as well.

It is difficult for us to remember that at the beginning of the 20th century, when radio and electronics were being born, there were no "grand old men" — or women — for new practitioners to follow, look up to or emulate. In 1912, the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) was born. One of the predecessor organizations of IEEE, IRE was the result of a merger of two organizations: the Boston-based Society of Wireless Telegraph Engineers (SWTE) and The Wireless Institute (TWI), based in New York. At the meeting to discuss the merger, TWI was represented by 33-year-old Robert Marriott and 25-year-old Alfred Goldsmith. Incredibly, SWTE was represented by John V. L. Hogan, who was only 22! 

After the merger, Marriott became the first President of IRE. The organization's board consisted of several fellow 30-somethings, while Goldsmith was named editor of the society's new journal, Proceedings of the IRE.* Likewise, Hogan became one of the managers (what we might today call a "director-at-large"). Goldsmith was not to become President of IRE until 1928, when he was 42. Hogan, however, became President in 1920 at the age of 30, making him the youngest person ever to serve as President of the IEEE or either of its predecessor organizations. Who was this precocious individual?

John V. L. Hogan was born in Bayonne, New Jersey on Valentine's Day in 1890. His childhood coincided with the beginning of the heyday of radio hobbyists, and by age 12 he had built his first amateur radio station. In 1906 he managed to secure a laboratory assistant position, working under Dr. Lee De Forest, a local engineer and entrepreneur experimenting with the audion, a three-element vacuum tube he had just invented. At his boss's suggestion, Hogan went to De Forest's alma mater, Yale, where he studied mathematics and electrical physics from 1908 to 1910.

In 1910, he left school to work for Reginald A. Fessenden and the National Signaling Company as a telegraph operator at the famous Brant Rock station. It was during this time that he became involved in SWTE. While at National, he helped develop Fessenden's first patent on the crystal detector (issued in 1910). He is also credited with the invention of the "rectifier heterodyne." An associate had observed some peculiar effects when a special transmitter was being operated while the station was receiving messages. Referring back to some of the work he did at Yale, Hogan succeeded in increasing the sensitivity of the radio receivers significantly.

Fessenden then made Hogan a supervisor for the Bush Terminal Station project in Brooklyn, New York. There he developed what is perhaps the first ink tape siphon for recording transatlantic radio signals, using an audion amplifier. His relocation to New York also made him the logical liaison for SWTE in its merger with TWI to form IRE. IRE made him a Fellow in 1915 and, as mentioned, President in 1920.

In 1921, after several important engineering management positions, Hogan opened his own consulting practice. At this point radio was a mature enough field to have a past and to have senior members of the profession who could argue about who invented it. Only 31, Hogan thought it important that young practitioners coming up in the field appreciate the past of their technology. He began work on a primer of sorts; The Outline of Radio was published in 1923. Hogan insisted on including a history of radio technology as the first chapter. In it, he made the following astute observation, which would be repeated 80 years later by an IEEE History Center staffer in response to a reference request:

"Scientists in many countries have helped in the development of radio signaling; but neither the United States, Great Britain, France, Italy, nor Germany need be unduly modest over the contributions of its workers. A chronological record of the art's advances will skip from one country to another; a bit suggested by one man here has been adopted and improved upon by another investigator there, and the combination of ideas has marked an additional step forward. Radio as we know it today is no single invention or discovery; modern instruments utilize the novelties devised by a host of engineers and physicists whose work extends over the past 70 years or more."

Hogan was not done with innovations, however. Always interested in tonal quality, he built one of the first high-fidelity radio stations. First licensed as W2XR in 1934, this 250-watt experimental station would eventually become New York City's 10,000-watt classical station, WQXR. So, as you listen to Brahms and Rachmaninoff while your grandchildren roll their eyes, remember that then Hogan was still only 44.

* The year 2002 is also the 90th anniversary of IRE and of Proceedings of the IEEE, which arose from the earlier journal. Look for special celebrations all year in Proceedings, including a commemorative article on Alfred Goldsmith in the February 2002 issue: http://www.ieee.org/organizations/pubs/proceedings/prev02.html. Also, for more information on the early history of IEEE, visit http://www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/
historical_articles/history_of_ieee.html.

Michael N. Geselowitz is Director of the IEEE History Center at Rutgers University in New Brunswick, N.J. Visit the IEEE History Center's Web page at: www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/.