Jewish Invention Myths: The Pager

Let’s deal with another one Alfred Gross’ claimed inventions which are used to buttress the claims that jews invented an awful lot more than they actually did. We’ve already covered the fact that despite claims otherwise Gross did not invent the walkie-talkie. (1)

Next, we’ll look at the pager.

‘MNews’ claims that:

‘Alfred Gross – Pager, walkie-talkie

Radio engineer Alfred Gross was a pioneer in mobile wireless communication. He was one of the inventors behind the walkie-talkie, pager, and the cordless telephone.’ (2)

‘Boulder Jewish News’ agrees (3) and even Wikipedia seems to:

‘The first telephone pager system was patented in 1949 by Alfred J. Gross.’ (4)

But notice that key word ‘telephone’?

Well, that’s important because the original pager wasn’t based on telephone technology but rather radio technology. This is important because Wikipedia’s source Mary Bellis writing at ‘ThoughtCo’ makes it very clear that Gross didn’t actually invent the pager in 1949 but rather improved on an invention that was first created and used 28 years earlier in 1921.

Bellis relates that:

‘Long before email and texting, there were pagers, portable mini radiofrequency devices that allowed for instant human interaction. Invented in 1921, pagers—or "beepers" as they are also known—reached their heyday in the 1980s and 1990s.’ (5)

Danyelle Arredondo at TMLT agrees:

‘Long before email and texting, there were pagers, portable mini radio frequency devices that allowed for instant human interaction. Invented in 1921, pagers (also known as beepers) were used by the Detroit Police Department when they successfully put a radio-equipped police car into service.’ (6)

As does Spok:

‘1921: The first-pager like system was used by the Detroit Police Department when they successfully put a radio-equipped police car into service.’ (7)

Lauren Cabral goes into a little more detail about what the difference between the original pager of 1921 and Gross’ pager of 1949 when she writes that:

‘The first pager-style system was created for the police in the 1920s, when a patrolman partnered with an engineering student to create a one-way radio transmission device that was later successfully fitted into a patrol car.’ (8)

What Cabral is telling us is that the original pager from 1921 used radio signals rather than telephony and Gross’ updated version from 1949 used telephony not radio signals. What that actually means is that Gross didn’t invent the pager but he improved the design of the pager. To be sure that is certainly creditable and a good thing, but it simply does not mean he ‘invented the pager’ anymore than the chief engineer of the latest version of the iPhone ‘invented the iPhone’.

So no Alfred Gross didn’t invent the pager!

References

(1) S

(2) https://mnews.world/en/news/the-great-jews-and-their-inventions

(3) https://boulderjewishnews.org/2009/an-informal-list-of-jewish-inventions-innovations-and-radical-ideas/

(4) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pager#History

(5) https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-pagers-and-beepers-1992315 also https://theinventors.org/library/inventors/blpager.htm

(6) https://hub.tmlt.org/tmlt-blog/communication-gadgets-then-and-now

(7) https://www.spok.com/blog/throwback-thursday-history-pagers/

(8) https://www.backthenhistory.com/articles/the-history-of-pagers