James Bullough Lansing (born James Martini, January 2, 1902 – September 29, 1949) was a pioneering American audio engineer and loudspeaker designer who was most notable for establishing two audio companies that bear his name,

Altec Lansing Altec Lansing, Inc. is a U.S. audio electronics company founded in 1927. Their primary products are loudspeakers and associated audio electronics for professional, home, automotive and multimedia applications. Engineers at Western Electric, ...

and JBL, the latter taken from his initials, JBL.

Biography

Early years

James Martini was born on January 2, 1902, in Greenridge, Nilwood Township,

Macoupin County Macoupin County is located in the U.S. state of Illinois. According to the 2010 census, it had a population of 47,765. The county seat is Carlinville. The primary industry is agriculture, consisting of crops of corn (maize), soybeans, and s ...

Illinois Illinois ( ) is a state in the Midwestern United States. Its largest metropolitan areas include the Chicago metropolitan area, and the Metro East section, of Greater St. Louis. Other smaller metropolitan areas include, Peoria and Rock ...

to parents Henry Martini of St. Louis, Missouri, and Grace Erbs Martini of Central City, Illinois. His father was a

coal mining Coal mining is the process of extracting coal from the ground. Coal is valued for its energy content and since the 1880s has been widely used to generate electricity. Steel and cement industries use coal as a fuel for extraction of iron from ...

engineer which meant the family moved around considerably in James' early years. He was the ninth of fourteen children. He lived for a short time with the Bullough family in

Springfield, Illinois Springfield is the capital of the U.S. state of Illinois and the county seat and largest city of Sangamon County. The city's population was 114,394 at the 2020 census, which makes it the state's seventh most-populous city, the second largest ...

, and later took their name.Audioheritage.com

Founding JBL] Lansing graduated eighth grade at Lawrence School in

, attended Springfield High School (Illinois), Springfield High School and also took courses at a small business college in Springfield. At a young age he built a

Leyden jar A Leyden jar (or Leiden jar, or archaically, sometimes Kleistian jar) is an electrical component that stores a high-voltage electric charge (from an external source) between electrical conductors on the inside and outside of a glass jar. It ty ...

to play pranks on his friends. He also built

crystal set A crystal radio receiver, also called a crystal set, is a simple radio receiver, popular in the early days of radio. It uses only the power of the received radio signal to produce sound, needing no external power. It is named for its most impo ...

s and a radio transmitter which was apparently powerful enough for the signal to reach

Great Lakes Naval Station Naval Station Great Lakes (NAVSTA Great Lakes) is the home of the United States Navy's only recruit training, boot camp, located near North Chicago, Illinois, North Chicago, in Lake County, Illinois. Important tenant commands include the Recruit ...

in Illinois. Lansing's transmitter was then dismantled when the Navy tracked the source down. Lansing had worked as an automotive mechanic and attended an automotive school in

Detroit Detroit ( , ; , ) is the largest city in the U.S. state of Michigan. It is also the largest U.S. city on the United States–Canada border, and the seat of government of Wayne County. The City of Detroit had a population of 639,111 at t ...

courtesy of the dealer he worked for. His mother died on November 1, 1924, when he was 22, he then left home and met his future wife, Glenna Peterson, in

Salt Lake City Salt Lake City (often shortened to Salt Lake and abbreviated as SLC) is the capital and most populous city of Utah, United States. It is the seat of Salt Lake County, the most populous county in Utah. With a population of 200,133 in 2020, th ...

in 1925. At the time he was working for a radio station as an engineer. He also worked for the Baldwin Radio Company and met his future business partner, Ken Decker in the city.

Career

Lansing and Decker moved to

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world ...

where they set up a business manufacturing

loudspeaker A loudspeaker (commonly referred to as a speaker or speaker driver) is an electroacoustic transducer that converts an electrical audio signal into a corresponding sound. A ''speaker system'', also often simply referred to as a "speaker" or ...

s. It was called the Lansing Manufacturing Company. Just before the company was registered on March 9, 1927, Lansing changed his name from James Martini to James Bullough Lansing at the suggestion of his future wife, Glenna. Most of his brothers had adopted the surname Martin, two of which (Bill and George) came to LA to work with him. Decker was killed in an airplane crash in 1939 and Lansing Manufacturing Company began to suffer financial difficulties without his business guidance. Altec Service Corporation bought Lansing Manufacturing Company in 1941, seeing the company as a valuable source for loudspeaker components. The combined company was named

. James B. Lansing was made VP of Engineering with a five-year contract. In 1946, Lansing left the company on the day his contract expired and started a new company called "Lansing Sound, Incorporated". Altec Lansing had a problem with that name's similarity to trademarked brands they had developed, so James Bullough Lansing renamed his new company "James B. Lansing Sound, Incorporated". Eventually, this became shortened to JBL on product branding and then officially as the company name. James Lansing was noted as an innovative engineer, but a poor businessman. As a result of deteriorating business conditions and personal problems, he took his own life by hanging himself in his home in San Marcos on September 29, 1949, aged 47.

References

History of JBL

Lansing Heritage

External links

{{DEFAULTSORT:Lansing, James Bullough 1902 births 1949 suicides JBL American acoustical engineers 20th-century American engineers Suicides by hanging in California 1949 deaths