Leishman, LeRoy James, 1896-1974

LeRoy James Leishman (1896-1974) was an inventor in Utah and California. He developed the first process of transmitting images electronically, and was responsible a number of innovations in imaging, recording, and associated technologies.

From the description of LeRoy James Leishman papers, circa 1909-1974. (Unknown). WorldCat record id: 367472413

LeRoy James Leishman (1896-1974) was an inventor in Utah and California. He developed the first process of transmitting images electronically, and was responsible a number of innovations in imaging, recording, and associated technologies.

LeRoy James Leishman was born on March 15, 1896 in Salt Lake City, Utah. His parents, James Leroy Leishman and Elizabeth Simpson Leishman, relocated to Oregon soon after his birth, where his father took a job as bookkeeper for lumber mills in LeGrand and Baker.

While LeRoy Leishman was in high school, the family relocated to Ogden, Utah, where he attended Weber Academy. At Weber Academy he met his future wife, Golda Engstrom, of Huntsville, Utah. In high school, he filed his first patents for an "arcoscope" and an adding machine. He marketed these inventions widely and they were used in schools throughout the United States. During high school, he also began work on a system to transmit photographs and images via the telegraph. He graduated from Weber Academy in 1915.

Two years following high school graduation, he married his high school sweetheart, Golda Engstrom, on September 2, 1917, in the Salt Lake City Temple of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. During this time he continued to develop his "telegraph picture" concept, and in 1919 he established Leishman Telegraph Picture Service. Leishman Telegraph had contracts with newspapers across the United States and "telegraphed" the first photographic image across the Atlantic Ocean, which was an image of Gertrude Ederle's first attempt to swim the English Channel in 1925.

In 1923, Golda gave birth to their only child, Dorothy Jean. Following Dorothy's birth in Los Angeles, California, where the couple was living, LeRoy and Golda returned to Ogden, Utah. Because he needed to work in a larger city, the couple soon moved back to Los Angeles. Over the course of the next ten years, he was involved in a series of projects, including the invention of an "electric pick-up," a device designed to enhance the quality of phonographic records. He also developed the "Mak-a-talkie," a device by which an individual could record his or her own voice. In the mid-1920s he established a concession stand at the Ocean Park Pier where tourists could use the "Mak-a-talkie" to record their own voices.

In the late 1920s and early 1930s, he turned his attention to television and radio, and in 1935 and 1936 he obtained a series of television related patents, including patents for "natural color" and "stereoscopic television." In 1937 he also obtained a patent for an "automatic radio tuner."

In the early 1940s Leishman began applying some of the principles of television to the development of a medical device that came to be known as the "Stereoscopic Fluoroscope." The Fluoroscope, which was first purchased by the United State military in 1943, enabled medical doctors to view x-rays from a three-dimensional perspective. It was especially useful in helping physicians identify foreign objects like shrapnel or straight pins in the body. Service and maintenance required trained technicians and Leishman often traveled the United States doing the work himself.

By the 1950s, Leishman had established Leishman X-Ray Engineering Company in Los Angeles and was manufacturing the Leishman Spot-Film Device. This device allowed physicians to view a patient with a normal fluoroscope and take a picture instantly of a specific area of the body. As he approached retirement, he took a position as a patent agent for a Los Angeles area law firm. In this capacity he prepared patent applications and assisted clients with their claims.

Leishman enjoyed poetry and writing, and towards the end of his life and he devoted much of his time to composing two unpublished extended essays: "Scientific Proof of God and Life Hereafter," ca. 1968-1972 and "Israel in America Before Columbus" ca. 1968-1972. LeRoy Leishman died October 14, 1974. His wife, Golda Engstrom Leishman, died 15 years later on June 22, 1989.

From the guide to the LeRoy James Leishman papers, 1909-1974, (L. Tom Perry Special Collections)