Princeton Magazine, October 2013

Page 40

(BELOW) Westinghouse Aeriola. (TOP-RIGHT) David Sarnoff with President Roosevelt. (BOTTOM-LEFT) Sarnoff in military uniform. (BOTTOM-RIGHT) Key to Tokyo; Wireless telegraph key operated by Sarnoff to aid in the rescue of the Titanic disaster in 1912.

as the key to Tokyo presented to Sarnoff and a calligraphic certiďŹ cate by the Institute for Electrical Communication, Japan. After SRI took over the research center and was not interested in maintaining the library, the David Sarnoff Library and Museum became its own nonproďŹ t corporation with a board of trustees. “The Smithsonian and the Henry Ford Foundation were interested in the artifacts but would not keep the museum, archival materials and artifacts intact,â€? says Emily Croll, Director of TCNJ’s Art Gallery and Sarnoff Collection. “We were pleased that it could stay in the state of New Jersey which has a rich history of electronics and technology, from Bell Labs to Edison Electric.â€? At TCNJ, it will be used for educational purposes and made available to the public. “Many RCA employees still live in the area and can be approached with questions.â€? The 2,800 linear feet of library materials have gone to the Hagley Library and Museum in Delaware, one of the largest business history artifacts in the country. “They already had the papers from RCA Camden so it was an appropriate home,â€? says Croll. Some of the technical manuals relating to the artifacts remain with the collection. Gross and Croll have been busy on the project for two years, putting together a catalog of the 6,000 artifacts, from microchips to large TVs, and 3,000 images. They launched an online database in December 2012. Students both contribute to and learn from the project, which features a comments section for crowd-sourcing data from former RCA employees. “Our goal is to introduce people to the breadth of technologies and to place it in a broader social, political, economic and cultural context,â€? says Gross. “The objects on their own are wonderful but they ďŹ t into broader history of American science and business.â€? 4@=; B63 A6B3B: A Russian immigrant, David Sarnoff grew up just outside of Minsk and was educated to be a Talmudic scholar. His father, a house painter, moved to New York City’s Lower East Side, looking for better opportunities. Abraham Sarnoff brought his family to the U.S. in 1900, when David was 9.

38 j

>@7<13B=< ;/5/H7<3 =1B=03@ !

In order to earn money, David sang in the synagogue choir and sold Yiddish language newspapers, opening his own newsstand at the age of 13. David learned the language quickly, and his abilities enabled him to compete in high school debates. “Recordings of his speeches show he valued the spoken word and prided himself on his mastery of the English language,â€? says Gross. “He felt his speeches were worth preservation and historians would want to read them. He loved giving speeches.â€? Although his education never went beyond high school—David worked to support his mother and siblings after his father died—he had ambitions to become a journalist. In 1906, intending to apply for a job at the New York Herald, he inadvertently walked into the ofďŹ ce for the Commercial Cable Company, thus

telegraph key to send messages to aid the rescue, helping him move further up the corporate ladder. Sarnoff wrote a memo to his supervisors in 1915, proposing a radio music box that enabled households to listen to signals sent from a central location and hear music and news. It was considered a hair-brained scheme—there were no broadcasting stations back then. Five years later, RCA grudgingly agreed to allocate $2,000 toward this concept that could replace the piano and phonograph. World War I was the ďŹ rst major conict to involve radio. “The U.S. government was concerned that a foreign company, Marconi, had too much control,â€? says Gross. “So the government came up with a scheme to organize a new company to hold all the radio patents so there wouldn’t be infringements.â€? 1919, RCA absorbed the American branch of Marconi, and Sarnoff became the commercial manager, moving up to general manager and then executive vice president. He was the ďŹ rst to bring radio, until then in the realm of the hobbyist, into the average home, by arranging for the heavyweight championship ďŹ ght between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier to be broadcast live by RCA. In the Sarnoff collection, the oldest radio with the RCA name is from 1922 and is in a hardwood case. The name Westinghouse is on top, because RCA was the licensing company for Westinghouse. 7< B63 </B7=<¸A A3@D713

changing the course of electronic history. When Sarnoff requested time off for the Jewish High Holy Days, he was ďŹ red and soon got a job for the American branch of Italian radio company, Marconi Wireless. By age 16, he was raking in $7.50 a week. In 1912 he was asked to be the manager of the new wireless station for John Wanamaker, sending messages back and forth between the New York and Philadelphia stores. “It was good public relations – people would come and watch the radio operator at work,â€? says Gross. In April 1912, when the Titanic crashed, Sarnoff spent 72 hours at the

In 1930, Sarnoff was named president of RCA. Just after the research facility opened in West Windsor, World War II broke out, and Sarnoff sent a telegram to President Roosevelt saying the factories at RCA were at his disposal. Radar, sonar, anything electronic – RCA could provide it, as well as networks to disseminate information. Eager to show his patriotism, Sarnoff was responsible for overseeing all communications systems with the D Day invasion. As a result, he earned the title Brigadier General, and was referred to thereafter as “The General.� “Sarnoff was always looking ahead to the next big thing in technology,� says Gross. “How could he grow the company. He sought to transmit images over the airwaves and developed electronic television.�

Issuu converts static files into: digital portfolios, online yearbooks, online catalogs, digital photo albums and more. Sign up and create your flipbook.