Arthur Atwater Kent

Inducted 2001

Deceased 

Arthur Atwater Kent was the son of a physician who served in the Civil War.  Atwater Kent, as he was known, was mechanically precocious, and his family sent him to Worcester (MA) Polytechnic Institute. 

He left after two years to work with a manufacturer in New Hampshire.  He later sold electrical equipment for a firm in Massachusetts before moving to Philadelphia in 1902.  There he established the Atwater Kent Manufacturing Works. 

Kent began by manufacturing small voltmeters and telephones and then expanded to make a variety of electrical devices.  He was interested in automobiles and especially in the means of igniting internal combustion engines. 

He patented the contactor, a breaker point mechanism. He invented the unisparker, one of the first jump-spark ignition systems, for which he was awarded the John Scott Medal of the Franklin Institute in 1914.  By 1920 Kent had become one of the major suppliers of electrical systems to the automobile industry. 

Income from his ignition systems enabled him to enter the radio business with a fully equipped manufacturing facility.  Kent began receiving orders for radio parts in 1922, and in 1923 he assembled and sold a five-tube receiving set.  He was very successful in this new industry.  By 1926 he had produced more than one million sets. 

In 1929, annual sales exceeded $60 million. By 1930 Atwater Kent was the leading firm in the industry.  His radios were of the highest quality and reliability, characteristics achieved by frequent inspections during the manufacturing process  Kent's interest in radio extended to programming. Beginning in 1925, he sponsored the Atwater Kent Hour, a network program that presented the best classical musicians of the time. 

In 1927 he set up the Atwater Kent Foundation, which sponsored nationwide auditions to discover young singers Winners were awarded cash as well as scholarships to study music. 

Kent's philanthropic endeavors included contributing toward the construction of a new building for the Franklin Institute. At the urging of the mayor, he then took over the old Institute building, modernized it, and donated it as a municipal historical museum, later named in his honor. 

Kent also restored the Betsy Ross House.  Kent recognized the changing market for radio receivers following the Depression. His business was based on moderately priced consoles, and he would not accept the market for cheap sets. He preferred to close rather than compromise his name and reputation. In 1926 he closed the factory and retired to California.