A D V E N T U R E S in C Y B E R S O U N DDavid Sarnoff, Gen. : 1891 - 1971
File Note: This biographical data was last edited on June 8, 1998. In mid November 1998 I received the following eMail (below) from Alex Magoun, the curator of the Sarnoff Corporation website With respect, I now then urge you to take that site as the primary source of information on Sarnoff and use this site as a source of mini biographical studies more suited to secondary educational needs. You will also note that several so called 'urban myths regarding Sarnoff are now refuted by Alex Magoun and I ask that you take this new evidence into consideration when using the 'authoritative' data from Groliers, Britannica etc.
Dr Russell Naughton, November, 1998.
Dear Mr. Naughton, I'm the curator of the David Sarnoff Collection in Princeton, NJ, and I've been admiring the density of your website. With your permission, I would like to add a link to it to the history page of the revised Sarnoff Corporation website, www.sarnoff.com, when it debuts on 12/28/98. I would also like to add some correctives. One of your photos, credited to the Bellingham Antique Radio Museum, has a caption explaining that DS is recreating his reception of the signal from the Titanic at a Marconi receiver. It is actually DS at the Siasconset station on Nantucket, c. 1908, and has nothing to do with events at the Wanamaker station in NYC in 1912. Incidentally, he was not on duty the night Titanic went down; the earliest message he received, and kept in a scrapbook here, was on April 16. As with most of the stories he told to gain attention, there is a kernel of truth to his claims The Radio Music Box listing is a more complicated story. I assume Donna Halper is referring to a brief article by Louise Benjamin in the Journal of Broadcasting and Electronic Media 37, 3 (Summer 1993), in which the latter concludes that without proof we should assume Sarnoff made up the earlier date. She has a point--up to a point. The memo usually reprinted, on your site and in Sarnoff's Looking Ahead: The Papers of David Sarnoff (1968) is that excerpted from a lengthier memo in 1920. Nonetheless, in his memo to Alfred Goldsmith proposing a portable radio in 1922, he refers to his prescience of 1915. No one here at Sarnoff recognizes the name of Dr. Benjamin's contact here at the Collection or corporation, who could find only the Elmer Bucher typescript that also contains the 1920 memo. There is a scrapbook here which contains a cover note to Edward Nally, his Marconi superior in 1916, in which Sarnoff refers to the missing enclosure along lines that strongly suggest it is the music box memo. Sarnoff also mentions that he raised this prospect with Nally "some time ago," which could refer to 1915. The likelihood that Sarnoff was referring to broadcasting for profit is reinforced by two clippings on Lee De Forest's NY-area b'casts carried out a day or two before Sarnoff wrote Nally. I expect to have the material scanned and suitably annotated on our website, but I want to make the point of trying to balance between the history Sarnoff standardized and the revisionists who assume the opposite. The truth is somewhere in-between. There are a several far better biographies of Sarnoff, with which you might replace the citation for his nephew's work: Carl Dreher, Sarnoff: An American Success (NY: 1977). Kenneth Bilby, The General: David Sarnoff and the Rise of the Communications Industry (NY: 1986). Tom Lewis, Empire of the Air: The Men Who Made Radio (NY: 1991). Best, Alex Magoun
Other biographical sketches for David Sarnoff
After emigrating (1900) to New York City from Russia with his family, Sarnoff worked as a telegraph operator for the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, the predecessor of RCA. In April 1912, while operating a station in New York City, he broadcast the first news of the sinking of the S.S. Titanic.1 In 1916, Sarnoff submitted the idea for a "radio music box" to the management of Marconi. Five years later he won acceptance of the radio when his broadcast of the Dempsey-Carpentier boxing match attracted an audience of about 300,000 amateur wireless operators. By 1930, Sarnoff had become president of RCA, had founded NBC, and had set up an experimental television station. During World War II, he was made a brigadier general, served as communications consultant to General Dwight D. Eisenhower, and was decorated with the Legion of Merit. He was chairman of the board of RCA from 1947 until his death.
As a boy in Russia [David] Sarnoff spent several years in preparing for a career as a Jewish scholar of the Talmud. He emigrated with his family in 1900 and settled first in Albany, N.Y., and then in New York City. While going to school, he helped support the family by selling newspapers, running errands, and singing the liturgy in a synagogue. In 1906 he left school to become a messenger boy for a telegraph company and with his first money bought a telegraph instrument. He soon became proficient in Morse operation and found work as a radio operator for the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company. After service on shore and at sea over the next few years, Sarnoff became operator of the most powerful radio station in the world, established by John Wanamaker atop his Manhattan department store. There, on April 14, 1912, Sarnoff picked up the distress signal from the sinking Titanic; he remained at his instrument for 72 hours, receiving and passing on the news.1 Source: Bellingham Radio Museum
David Sarnoff (b. Feb. 27, 1891, Minsk, Russia d. Dec. 12, 1971, New York, N.Y., U.S.), American pioneer in the development of both radio and television broadcasting. As a boy in Russia Sarnoff spent several years in preparing for a career as a Jewish scholar of the Talmud. He emigrated with his family in 1900 and settled first in Albany, N.Y., and then in New York City. While going to school, he helped support the family by selling newspapers, running errands, and singing the liturgy in a synagogue. In 1906 he left school to become a messenger boy for a telegraph company and with his first money bought a telegraph instrument. He soon became proficient in Morse operation and found work as a radio operator for the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company. After service on shore and at sea over the next few years, Sarnoff became operator of the most powerful radio station in the world, established by John Wanamaker atop his Manhattan department store. There, on April 14, 1912, Sarnoff picked up the distress signal from the sinking Titanic; he remained at his instrument for 72 hours, receiving and passing on the news.1 Rewarded by the Marconi company with rapid promotion, he became an important official of the company and in 1916 first proposed the "radio music box," or commercially marketed radio receiver. The proposal was several years in gaining acceptance, but in 1921, as general manager of the newly formed Radio Corporation of America (RCA), he demonstrated its market potential in broadcasting the boxing match between Jack Dempsey and Georges Carpentier (July 2, 1921); the broadcast created a sensation. Within three years RCA sold more than $80,000,000 worth of receiving sets. In 1926 he formed the National Broadcasting Company (NBC). By that time Sarnoff had perceived the potential of television, which the contributions of several inventors were making technically feasible. In 1928 he launched an experimental NBC television station; by 1939 he was able to give a successful demonstration of the new medium at the New York World's Fair. Development was delayed by World War II, during which Sarnoff, a reserve officer, served on General Dwight D. Eisenhower's staff as a communications consultant and was promoted to brigadier general. He became president of RCA in 1930 and chairman of the board in 1947, retiring in 1970.
1 now refuted by Alex Magoun, curator of the David Sarnoff Collection in Princeton, NJ
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