Parlor Televisor 1903 American Charles Francis Jenkins began to study the idea of "television"in the early 1890. and began to manufacture commercial models of his device in 1903. His parlor style televisors employed a novel viewing system that not only could be use by looking directly into the veiw srceen, but also project images onto the ceiling. In 1895, Charles Francis Jenkins and Thomas Armat developed the first American motion picture projector, the Phantascope.