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Albert Jackson "Bud" "Alberto" Byington Jr

BIRTH 18 MAY 1902 • São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

DEATH 1964 • Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil

Married:  28 Feb 1930 • São Paulo, São Paulo, Brazil

Elisa Candida Arruda Botelho

BIRTH 23 NOV 1910 • São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil

DEATH 14 JUL 2003 • São Paulo, Sao Paulo, Brazil 

She was the daughter of Carlos Amadeu de Arruda

Botelho and Brazilia Whitaker de Oliveira Lacerda

About Alberto Jackson Byington, Júnior

Alberto Jackson Byington Jr. (18 May 1902 – 17 Dec-

ember 1964)  was a Brazilian  hurdler. He competed

in the men's 110 metres hurdles at the 1924 Summer

Olympics.

This article  addresses  the trajectory of  Alberto By-

ington Júnior.
and  the company  created  by his  father  before the

beginning  of  his  career  as a film  producer  in  the

1930s. Byington & Cia's  activities in  electricity gen-

eration,  electrical  engineering  and import of  elec-

trical  equipment  preceded  the  company's   invest-

ment in the cultural  industry.  The  performance in

the phonographic and radio industry,  in particular, 

anticipated  the company's  actions in  Brazilian cin-

ema  after  the  advent of the  sound film.  From  the

manufacture  of  sound  projection  equipment,  By-

ington  &  Cia started  to  invest in  film  production,

revealing an articulated business strategy.

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Albert Jr.

He  entered  in  1920  at  Harvard  University,  Cam

bridge, where he graduated in Iberian History and

Literature,  receiving  the  title of  Bachelor of  Arts

and of Science in 1924 (Oliveira, 1965: 119; Harvard

University, 1930).

During this period, the  Byington's firstborn  lived

with the "highest intellectual, economic and  finan

cial elite in the United States" (Martins, 2007: 112).

One of his colleagues from Harvard,  an American

from Kansas, said that Albert was no more Brazil-

ian than himself:

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His parents were originally from Baltimore, but at a young age they had gone to São Paulo and lived there for the rest of their lives, thriving and sending their children back to North America to be educated. He had a crucial decision before him. A crossroads was ahead of him. What was he, anyway? Brazilian or American? He would have to decide, because if he were to live permanently in Brazil where his family's interests and roots were now, he would have to return to complete the three years of compulsory military service in the Brazilian army. He would have to make that choice soon (W. L. W., 1964: 4) 

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Albert Jr. â € “or Alberto Junior â €“ made his decision and managed to graduate from Harvard in just three years. Back in Brazil, he enrolled at the Largo de São Francisco Law School, in São Paulo, where he received the diploma of lawyer (Martins, 2007: 112). His humanistic training was allied to his interest in the sport. In 1923 he competed for Clube Paulistano in the 110 meters hurdles track and field. In the following year, he would travel as an athlete, secretary, treasurer, and head of the Brazilian delegation for the Paris Olympics, disputing this same event in the event that marked the first participation of Brazilians in the Olympic athletics events. According to Paulo Egydio Martins (2007: 113), his future father-in-law was an idealist who "had a passion for Brazil and thought that we could be equal or better than the United States".

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In 1930, at the age of 28, Alberto Jackson Byington Júnior, who already holds a prominent position in his father's powerful companies, married Elisa de Arruda Botelho, daughter of a wealthy farmer with a traditional surname. The social rise of the Byington family and its insertion in the São Paulo elite were duly enshrined. Ironically, almost 30 years earlier the then normalist Pérola, still un-married, had been invited to work as a housekeeper in the home of relatives of the girl who would now be her daughter-in-law. After three decades, Alberto Júnior's marriage united the Byingtons with a fourteenth-century family from São Paulo (Mott, 2001: 219).

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Like his father, Byington Júnior was aware of the latest technological innovations in the United States and the possibility of their introduction in Brazil. In the late 1920s, therefore, he directed Byington & Cia's investments towards new media and the nascent Brazilian cultural industry, through businesses linked to the disco, radio, and cinema.

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The record industry

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In 1925 the Columbia Phonograph Company began using the new electric recording process licensed by Western Electric in the United States, launching the acclaimed album "Viva-tonal". Two years later, the first electric record took place in Brazil, with a disc recorded by Odeon with the singer Francisco Alves and the Jazz Pan American Orchestra of the Casino Copacabana. The electrical recording, replacing the mechanical, resulted in a huge technical improvement in the quality of recording and in the reduction of the production costs of the discs, feeding the expansion of the Brazilian music industry and the increase of competition in the market with the arrival of new foreign companies. It is important to note, however, that "electric" referred to the process of recording the discs, and not necessarily to the record players, which could still be mechanical, powered by string, for example, and not electricity.

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In  1928,  the  powerful  multinationals  Odeon  and

Parlophon  (in fact, linked  together)  were the only

companies  that  recorded  and   manufactured  re-

cords in Brazil,  having already adopted  the  elect-

rical process. Until the beginning of that year, discs

and equipment imported from Columbia had been

sold by the traditional English Optics house, which

is  no  longer  the  exclusive  representative  of   the

brand,  whose  products started  to be sold  by  dif-

ferent  Brazilian  establishments (Phono-Arte, v. 1,

n. 14, February 28, 1929, pp. 3-4).

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In  mid-1928,  anticipating the growth potential of

the phonographic market in the country, the Amer-

ican  Wallace Downey,  a Columbia employee,  was

sent to Brazil to install a Brazilian branch of the company in São Paulo, "if possible with local money", what was provided by Byington & Cia (Castro, 2005: 116-7). As a representative of several North American companies, the Brazilian company accepted the offer, which was narrated by the Phono-Arte magazine (ibid): "The recording of national records, of Brazilian music and with the contest of our artists, was the Columbia's main objective once its agreements with the Byington & Cia firm have ended ".

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The newspaper O Paiz (24 Nov. 1929, p. 11) described this same agreement the following year:

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In May last year, the great firm Byington & C., specialized in electricity articles for so many years, signed a contract for Columbia's general representation in Brazil. This house, whose prestige and solidity so flatter those who vibrate with our commercial progress, owes its privileged situation, mainly, to Mr. Albert's hardworking, lucid and progressive spirit. J. Byington, Brazilian citizen.

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Due to a happy agreement between that firm and Columbia, Columbia definitely implemented its idea of ​​setting up a Brazilian factory. Therefore, it is up to Byinton & C. to also receive praise for this great step taken in favor of the national industry.

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Columbia started to have an "important commercial house" as its representative in the country, which made it possible to build a recording studio close to the building where Byington & Cia was already located in São Paulo and a factory to record the discs at the capital of São Paulo and also in Rio de Janeiro. From 1929, although it continued to import foreign discs, Columbia also started to manufacture national discs from foreign matrices and, mainly, started to produce discs of matrices recorded in Brazil itself.

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In this moment of strong investment, the main recording companies sent experienced professionals to Brazil to accompany the installation of their factories. Columbia, for example, had the American John Lilienthal as managing director and Wallace Downey as an artistic supervisor in the country. The Rio branch was run by partner Jones B. Orr and had George C. Stevens as the "technical director of the electricity session and head of advertising". But the role of musical director fell to a Brazilian, conductor Odmar Amaral Gurgel, whose inverted initials would give him the pseudonym "Gao".

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According to journalist Aramis Millarch (1991: 4), Columbia's first recordings in Brazil would be made in an improvised studio on Rua José Bonifácio, in São Paulo, but soon Byington would provide ample facilities in Largo da Misericórdia. In May 1929, Columbia's first national albums were released, featuring songs performed by Jayme Redondo, Abigail Allessio Parecis, A. Pescuma, Paraguassú, Pile, Batista Júnior, Gustavo Leal, and Luly Málaga ("the tango queen"). Soon singers of national rhythms would be valued, such as Stefana de Macedo, promoted as "the expert interpreter of our folklore".

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Sound cinema

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We must remember that it was precisely the advancement in electric disc recording technology promoted by Western Electric that, in association with Warner Bros. studios, allowed the development of the pioneer Vitaphone, a sound cinema system through disc sound technology.

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In this sense, Donald Crafton (1997: 19) pointed out that talking pictures emerged in the United States from new configurations of existing electrical applications that had not been originally developed for cinema. The sound film was combined with advances in the sectors of transport (elevators and electric trams) and communications (radio and telephone), as well as in the field of "electric entertainment" (which included discs). These developments were immersed in the aura of new and more modern technologies of the time, remembering that, in the 1920s, "anything associated with electricity tended to generate admiration and respect" (ibid: 21).

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Sound cinema arrived in Brazil in April 1929, at the inauguration of Cine Paramount, in São Paulo, equipped with combined projectors Vitaphone and Movietone - optical sound system (sound on film) also developed by Western Electric. The success of the novelty was resounding. In less than six months, the best movie theaters in Rio de Janeiro and São Paulo were already equipped with imported sound projectors, and "synchronized films" broke box office records (Freire, 2012a).

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However, the conversion to sound cinema was not a simple matter for most Brazilian exhibitors. In addition to the need to adapt the acoustics of the rooms, it was necessary to regulate the supply of electricity to power the now indispensable rectifiers, photoelectric cells of sound readers, amplifiers and speakers. There was also the issue of buying new and expensive devices, since Western Electric tried to impose a monopoly on the sale of sound projectors in Brazil by defending the exclusive display of Hollywood talkies on their equipment (Freire, 2012c).

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The other exhibitors tried different ways to accompany the novelty, including installing in their rooms the new, modern and expensive record players - which were, on the other hand, cheaper than the sound projectors - in order to offer the musical accompaniment of the films by electric discs as a palliative for the absence of the projection of real spoken, sung and musicized films.

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The most attentive Brazilian producers noticed a gap in the market there. This was the case with Luiz de Barros, director of O otários se ended, the first Brazilian sound feature film, released in September 1929. More than just making a film, Luiz de Barros and his partners built a sound projector, the Sincrocinex, which basically consisted of a modern record player connected to speakers. With it, the director was able to project his film partially sung and spoken in Portuguese in cinemas that did not have sound projectors, reaching a popular audience perhaps less fond of the spoken and sung talkies in English than shown in the most luxurious rooms.

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The success of Suckers are over was enormous and, as the film featured songs by Genésio Arruda and Paraguaçu, exclusive artists from Columbia, Byington & Cia even promoted the records of these singers taking advantage of their participation in the production of Luiz de Barros (Freire, 2013).

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More than just making money on the suckers are over, Byington & Cia probably realized the commercial potential of spoken cinema for their businesses. However, its directors did not initially identify the production of sound films as a possible investment, aware of the fact that Brazilian cinema - marginalized in the domestic market dominated by foreign film - was seen as a risky business and even frowned upon by elites. As a company with experience in the manufacture of electrical equipment, Byington & Cia initially invested in the production of sound projectors for the national exhibition circuit.

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Sincrocinex and Fonocinex

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The Sincrocinex de Suckers are over was built in the workshop of Gustavo Zieglitz, importer of French equipment from Pathé, as a projection system created specifically to allow the showing of films made by Luiz de Barros and his partners. Although it was ironically announced that Sincro-cinex would be even better than American projectors in that it could show not only Hollywood films, but also national ones, it was, above all, a way for Brazilian producers to allow public access to your own films. This was due to the restrictions of the market (the commitment of the big theaters already converted to sound cinema to Hollywood production); for legal reasons (the defense by Western Electric of the exclusivity of showing Hollywood films on its equipment); and also due to techno-logical imperatives, since Sincrocinex used common discs from the recording industry, 78 rpm, and not the then inaccessible special discs, 33 1/3 rpm, from the Vitaphone system.

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The intrinsic connection of this projection equipment with the films produced especially for him is made clear by the fact that Sincrocinex was not sold individually to exhibitors. In fact, the equipment was transported from cinema to cinema, following the circuit display of No more suckers. As in the days of traveling exhibitors from the beginning of cinema, the copy of the film and its respective projection equipment traveled from neighborhood to neighborhood and, later, from city to city. It was the producer's responsibility to take the film, as well as assemble the equipment for its exhibition.

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However, under a broader view, Sincrocinex was nothing more than one of the many counterfeits of Vitaphone that emerged in Brazil after the arrival of sound cinema, alongside devices such as Fitafone, Vox Phone or Teatrophone, which were installed in movie theaters in different cities in the country. These "cavatones" or "tapeafones", as they would be pejoratively called through the refer-ence to "digging" and "tapping", made it possible for small exhibitors to offer mechanical musical accompaniment to silent feature films. They also allowed an irregular and inconsistent sync to Brazilian short films specially made for such exhibition, such as the musical short films produced by Paulo Benedetti or by the National Circuit of Exhibitors (CNE) throughout 1929. The singularity of Luiz de Barros was having daring to launch himself into the market with a feature film, which would have resulted in several difficulties and technical problems in the exhibitions of “No more suckers” reported by the press at the time and in the filmmaker's memoirs (cf. Barros , 1978).

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But while these first national tapeafones were produced and launched, other North American brands of Vitaphone-Movietone projectors (such as those from RCA, Pacent and Melophone) arrived on the Brazilian market, offering exhibitors quality alternatives. However, even cheaper than Western Electric projectors, the prices of imported competitors remained above a hundred contos de réis due to the dollar values ​​of the equipment and the high import and transportation costs, in addition to the costly customs fees. Thus, the imported projectors remained financially inaccessible to small Brazilian exhibitors.

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Therefore, there was a potential market for movie theaters that demanded sound projection equipment that would meet their needs and possibilities. It is natural that Byington & Cia, specialized in electrical and sound equipment, invested in this market, launching the sound projector called Fonocinex. It was not a "cavatone" like Sincrocinex (that is, an adaptation, an improvisation or a "way"), but a national equipment that would perform the same function as imported projectors.

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In Rio de Janeiro, the pioneer company in the manufacture of national sound projectors was Cinephon, which started selling equipment in the Vitaphone and Movietone systems in the early 1930s. Fonocinex equipment also started to be produced in 1930, but its sales grew in the year Following. In April 1931, in a demonstration of Byington & Cia's equipment in Porto Alegre, it was announced that "50 devices are already installed in various parts of the country" (Correio do Povo, 3 abr. 1931, p. 12 ). In June of that year, an advertisement in a São Paulo newspaper highlighted that "Fonocinex completed 100 installations in Brazil in 5 months. More than any other national or foreign brand" (O Estado de S. Paulo, June 28, 1931, p. 18 ).

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In addition to the fact that Fonocinex equipment is cheaper because it is not subject to customs duties, Byington & Cia, with its experience in the record and radio market, offered constant technical assistance in Portuguese to exhibitors, as well as devices considered to be in operation. simpler and easier for projectionists. An advertisement highlighted this advantage of Fonocinex: "It has no handling complications; it can be operated by anyone with a quiet cabin practice" (Correio da Manhã, 22 mar. 1931, p. 5).

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In addition, unlike Western Electric, which initially sold to Brazilian exhibitors only "block" sound systems - not only reading and sound reproduction equipment, but also a new projector - national companies sold only the necessary mechanisms to convert silent projectors to display talkies. This decrease in investment was highlighted in the company's advertising: "Fonocinex is adaptable to any brand of projector - both American, German and French" (Correio da Manhã, 22 mar. 1931, p. 5). In another ad, this advantage was again highlighted: "It adapts to any type of modern projector without difficulty and without needing changes" (Correio da Manhã, 10 May. 1931, p. 2).

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A complete Fonocinex set, for example, was advertised for only 27 contos de réis in 1931, much less than half that of most imported equipment, which generally exceeded one hundred contos. On the other hand, the emphasis on the quality of the equipment manufactured by Byington & Cia was recurrent, even in the face of criticism of several brands of national projectors - such "cavatones" - that would cause headaches in exhibitors due to their malfunction. . The well thought-out slogan of a Fonocinex ad conveyed this idea: "Install a device whose price is not so high as to damage your profits, or so low that your quality is impaired" (Correio da Manhã, 24 May. 1931, p . 5).

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Fonocinex projectors were marketed especially for the exhibitor market in São Paulo and the South of the country, since in Minas Gerais and Rio de Janeiro there were other national competitors competing for customers, such as the brands Cinephon, Cinetom and Cinevox. The Northeast Region, on the other hand, was a market exploited by all these companies. Even so, given the large circuit of movie theaters located especially in the interior of São Paulo, Paraná and Rio Grande do Sul - in whose capitals Byington & Cia already had branches - Fonocinex took the lead in the Brazilian market , as attested by The 1935-1936 Motion Picture Almanac (1936, p. 1006). In the annual review of the Brazilian cinematographic market, the North American magazine pointed out that most of the cinemas in the suburbs and in the interior cities bought national projection equipment and that the main manufacturer was Byington & Cia, whose projectors were sold under the brand. Phonocinex.

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Conclusion: from manufacturing equipment for film production

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In 1931, the first year of expansion in Fonocinex sales, Alberto Byington Júnior financed the musical film Coisas nossa, supervised by the strongman of the company's phonographic division, Wallace Downey. In addition to publicizing artists hired by radio stations and contractually linked to Columbia, the film would also have been made to publicize Fonocinex projection equipment (Barro, 2001).

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The recording of the dialogues of Stuff of ours - the first Brazilian feature film fully equipped with synchronous recording of image and sound - was in charge of technician Moacyr Fenelon, radio professional who had collaborated in the installation of the projection equipment of Acabaram the suckers themselves. After Sincrocinex's debut film, Fenelon worked as a sound technician for films such as O babão (Luiz de Barros, 1931) and O foot-ball champion (Genésio Arruda, 1931). However, at the time of Coisas nossa Fenelon was already "chief radio technician at Byington & Cia", being the "only Brazilian sound engineer at Columbia Phonograph Co." (Cine Magazine, v. 5, n. 49, May. 1937, p. 26).

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Although Coisas ours is currently known as the first Brazilian film sounded in the Vitaphone system (a brand of a system patented by Western Electric), it was tailor-made to enhance the quality of the Fonocinex national sound system, whose models of sound projectors on disc were called Sono-disco, while the optical sound models were Sono-film. In other words, precisely the name that would be given to the cinema studios created by Byington in the future.

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After the recent and successful investments by Byington & Cia in the phonographic industry (Colum-bia) and radio broadcasting (Rede Verde-Amarela, led by the Cruzeiro do Sul broadcaster), as well as in the market for the sale of equipment for the cinema exhibition circuit (Fonocinex ), Alberto Byington Júnior could take firm and safe steps in film production. Unlike the creative and impro-vised opportunism of Suckers No More, the film Coisas nossa represented an initiative fully inserted in an articulated investment strategy in the Brazilian cultural market, with the nascent urban popular music as its main raw material. Persisting in the strategy of diversification of activities that had already been followed by the company in the engineering sector - a strategy, moreover, currently shared by the main companies in the media sector -, Byington & Cia sought to increase its profit-ability through "gains scope ", diversifying its activities through" diagonal integration "(cf. Galvão, 2012).

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Initially, the scope economy was used by Byington & Cia in the manufacture of different electrical products (record players, radiolas, sound projectors) that used common inputs and expertise, being, therefore, manufactured by Casa Byington at lower costs than if they were distinct and separate companies. However, later on, this same scope economy was used in the manufacture of cultural and artistic products (films, records, radio programs), which used, for example, the same artists and technicians in the production of works for different media.

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Thus, acting in different production chains â € “diagonally integrated â €“, which benefited from each other (advertising, income, distribution networks, etc.), Byington had a unique business mentality in the Brazilian cinema field at the time. It would possibly achieve even greater prom-inence were it not for the political circumstances of the time. After all, Byington & Cia's initiatives would soon suffer a serious setback with the Constitutionalist Revolution of 1932, given the entrepreneur's decisive support for the São Paulo opponents of Getúlio Vargas. But that's another story.

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http://www.scielo.br/scielo.php?script=sci_arttext&pid=S0103-21862013000100007

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Elisa Cândida Botelho Byington (born De Arruda Botelho)

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Elisa was the daughter of Carlos Amadeu de Arruda Botelho and Brazilia Whitaker de Oliveira Lacerda.  Her father, Carlos was the son of  Antonio Carlos Amadeu de Arruda Botelho and Anna Carolina De Mello Oliveira.

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