FOOTBALL AND TECHNOLOGY: The Essence of the Bay Area
A presentation by Ted Atlas
In 1878, in what is now part of the Stanford University campus, Eadweard Muybridge lined up twelve cameras, each with a string attached to the shutter release, to capture the gait of a horse as it galloped past. When viewed using Muybridge’s zoopraxiscope, the twelve frames made up the world’s first motion picture. The significance of the fact that it was it the behest of, and financed by, Leland Stanford cannot be underrated. The Silicon Valley and the technological eras that preceded it would not have happened without Stanford University and its alumni.
Just eight years after Muybridge’s invention of the motion picture, the University of California began to play American football. Five years later, in 1891, the just opened Stanford University fielded a team. Just as college football was starting up at the turn of the century, the foundation of the Silicon Valley was being laid. The first homegrown tech company was the Federal Telegraph Company formed in Palo Alto in 1909. Stanford University invested $500 in Federal, and the company soon attracted Lee de Forest, the “Father of Electronics.” The die was cast for the Silicon Valley.
Ted Atlas is a native of San Jose and 4th -generation Californian. He returned to San Jose after earning a BA in Geography from UCLA. He is retired from the Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Department. Concurrent to his full-time career, he worked for 36 years in game day operations at San Francisco 49er games. This led him to write Candlestick Park, an illustrated history of the stadium published by Arcadia Publishing. He continues to write and publish articles of local historical interest. In 2025 his articles were published in Air Attack and Air Classics magazines.
