The Perham History Files were first created by Douglas M. Perham and continued by the Perham Foundation and Foothills Electronics Museum. The collection served as a quick reference file regarding people, companies, apparatus, and events relating to the history of early radio and electronics. It includes an array of materials -- ephemeral publications, news clippings, letters, notes, and photographs -- arranged in two series, Documents and Photographs.

The Perham History Files are part of The Perham Collection of Early Electronics, the legacy of radio pioneer Douglas McDonald Perham (1887-1967), an early wireless experimenter and radio broadcaster. Perham’s career spanned the first 50 years of commercial electronics in the West — from his first teen-aged experiment with a Marconi coherer in 1898 to his retirement from Varian in 1953. As Federal Telegraph Company’s first American employee (1909), he built the company’s first four Poulsen arcs, and worked with Lee de Forest’s research team (1911-12). He installed experimental and commercial Federal wireless stations throughout California and Texas. In 1922, he built and operated one of Iowa’s first licensed radio broadcasting stations, WJAM, and the first affiliated with a newspaper (The Cedar Rapids Gazette). Coming back to California in 1928, he worked for many local firms, including Federal, Heintz and Kaufman, Dalmo Victor, Ampex and Varian Associates.

16.5 linear feet

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The papers are available for researchers by appointment through the Curator of Library and Archives.