Homer E. Capehart Autographs, Memorabilia & Collectibles

Homer Earl Capehart (1897-1947), a veteran of WWI, is known as "the father of the jukebox industry" for developing the Simplex mechanism for automatically changing records (his company, Packard, was eventually bought by Wurlitzer). By the end of World War II, there were over 2 million jukeboxes in service in the US. In 1938. Capehart hosted a "Cornfield Conference" on his farm, a meeting which helped revitalize the Republican Party in the Midwest. Elected to the US Senate from Indiana in 1945, he served three full terms, narrowly losing a fourth bid in 1962. He sponsored funding of housing for military families and advocated clean air legislation. He was among the first to warn of the danger of the relationship between Cuba and the U.S.S.R., years before the Bay of Pigs and Cuban Missile Crisis.