David Sarnoff was born to Abraham and Leah Sarnoff on February 27, 1891. His father was a Jewish painter in a shtetl of Uzlian in Russia. Needless to say, they were very poor. In 1896, Abraham came to the United States with a large influx of other Russian Jews. The idea was to make enough money to bring the rest of the family over in time. David would not see his father again for four years. During this time, his mother sent him off to his grandmother's brother who was a rabbi to teach him to become one himself. He spent four years eating and sleeping the "Talmud". He literally had to sing for his supper. If he missed a portion of his memorization, he did not eat. Even though he hated this strict regimen, he said later in life that it served him well in business.

In 1900, his father had made enough money to bring the rest of his family over to the United States. His father had endured some hard times in New York, doing menial jobs which only sometimes included house painting or paperhanging. This did much in destroying his health. Instead of coming over to the United States and into the harbor, his mother chose a cheaper much longer way of getting to the United States. They finally arrived in Manhattan on July 2,1900. Through a mixup in communications, Abraham was waiting for them at a different dock. They finally met up later that evening. The family was quite shocked at the sheer magnitude of the city. They obviously had never seen anything so huge as the city of New York in their lives. They also were shocked to see the poor health David's father was in. Their new home was a fourth story flat on Monroe Street on the lower East Side. Obviously Abraham had not fared too well in America. David saw the squalor they lived in and decided that he had to do something about it. At nine years of age, he was going to have to become the family breadwinner.

David began selling Yiddish newspapers every afternoon at a penny a piece. For every fifty papers he sold, he received a quarter. In order to be successful, he had to beat out other boys in covering the territory before they sold theirs. In order to make more money, he took up delivering another paper in the morning. At 4:00 a.m. every morning he would wake up and grab the bundle of papers as they were tossed from the elevated train. He trained himself to wake up at the sound of the oncoming train. His days were filled with delivering newspapers, with little time in between to study and read. On weekends he made extra money singing in his synagogue. He also enrolled in English classes at the Educational Alliance. This was a school set up by German Jews who had come to the United States in the 1800's. David spent much time in the school's library and attending lectures held at the school auditorium. After only five months in America, he had learned enough English to read the English newspapers. By the time he was old enough for his bar-mitzvah, he had developed into a proficient speaker. He was also busy learning how to become an entrepreneur. He opened a newspaper stand at age fourteen with money which was anonymously given to him. He put his brothers to work as well as his ailing father. By his fifteenth birthday, he graduated from elementary school. High school was out the question and his father was near death. This meant that the responsibility of supporting the family fell upon him.

David decided that he would try to get a job with one of the newspapers in town as a reporter. He went to the paper he admired most, the New York Herald. He made his way uptown to the building of the Herald but went into the wrong office. He ended up in the office of the Commercial Cable Company. A mistake he never regretted.

He delivered messages to the Herald and other businesses around town on a bicycle which the company provided. He didn't keep this job very long though, because when he asked for a three day leave of absence for Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, his boss said no. David protested his boss's decision and was fired. This was one of his first but not his last run ins with anti-semetism.

It was during his time at the Commercial Cable Company that he first saw the telegraph key. He became very interested in it and with one of his first paychecks he purchased his own key. From this time on he was never far from a telegraph key. Through hours of practice, he developed one of the best fists in the business. After being fired from the Commercial Cable Company, he applied for a job with the American Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company as a junior telegraph operator. Working for Marconi was the next best thing to happen to David Sarnoff. He would work for Marconi and its successor, the Radio Corporation for the next sixty years. American Marconi Telegraph Company was not a money making company at the time. It was a money losing presence in America, for its parent company in England.

Davey Sarnoff as he was known at the time didn't actually start out as a telegraph operator. He started out as an office boy sweeping floors and running errands. He read everything that he was supposed to file and soon learned everything there was to know about the company. He even read letters from Marconi himself which allowed him to see how the management worked firsthand. One evening in December,1906, Davey introduced himself to Marconi as the newest employee of the American Marconi Telegraph Company. His bold gamble of introducing himself paid off. Shortly after his sixteenth birthday, he was promoted to junior wireless operator. Sarnoff was on his way to working himself up the ladder at American Marconi Telegraph Company. He eventually worked his way up to Chief Inspector for Marconi. It was in this position that he met a very important person in the new world of radio.

Edwin H. Armstrong was an inventor who had been working on developing a receiver that would pick up wireless signals better. Sarnoff and three other Marconi engineers went to see a demonstration of Armstrong's new powerful "regeneration receiver." Sarnoff and his engineers were amazed at this new device. They were able to pick up signals from Glace Bay, Labrador and Clifden, Ireland. They also tuned in a station from San Francisco. This made a great impression on Sarnoff. He and Armstrong immediately liked each other and got to know each other better when they spent the last two days of January,1914 together at a transmission station at Belmar, New Jersey. There they listened to transmissions from around the world. Sarnoff reported to his superiors that this new receiver warranted careful investigation of the patents because this device had advantages which unless there were other systems out there which he was not aware of, it was the most remarkable system in existence.

Sarnoff saw great potential with this new technology. Unfortunately, the higher ups didn't feel the same way. Sarnoff saw a way of moving into a new field of "broadcasting", sending a signal from one point to many receivers. Marconi said that they were a point to point operation and were quite profitable in this procedure. In 1906, an inventor named Fessenden experimented transmitting voice over the air to wireless receivers on boats. In 1914, Sarnoff experimented in sending music and voice to the Wanamaker Dept. Store in Philadelpia. He accomplished this by putting a transmitter on the roof of the Wanamaker building. In 1916 he sent a memo to Edward J. Nally, the vice-president and general manager of American Marconi of prophetic sense that would take Marconi Company sales into a new direction. "I have in mind a plan of development which would make radio a household utility in the same sense as the piano or the phonograph," said Sarnoff.

He wanted to bring music into the homes of America by wireless. Another problem with Sarnoff's idea was timing, World War I was about to break out. He would have to put his idea on hold until after the war.

After the war General Electric and American Marconi were discussing an important business transaction. Marconi wanted to buy what was then the most powerful generator of radio waves. General Electric held the patents and Marconi wanted to buy the exclusive rights. Unfortunately the Navy did not want to see radio fall into the hands of foreigners like the Marconi Company. Foreign companies already dominated the submarine wire industry. It was through this problem that a new American company arose that Sarnoff was to eventually come to run. On October 17,1919, the Radio Corporation of America, with the patents of General Electric and Marconi, was incorporated in the state of Delaware. Sarnoff was made the commercial manager of "RCA". He was now second in command to Edward Nally. Nally relied heavily on Sarnoff to run RCA. He worked hard at capturing back all the radio business that Marconi lost to the Navy during the war. He was also instrumental in building a transmitter using one of the powerful generators acquired by General Electric which would become the center of RCA's international radio communications. All this led up to his ideas from before. He sent a twenty-eight page memo to Owen D. Young, the once vice-president of General Electric and now chairman of RCA which shared Sarnoff's vision. His memo contained nine sections with headings like "Patent Situation," "Marine Business," "Sales to Amateurs," and "Sales and Merchandising Policies." It stood as a blueprint for making RCA a dominant radio company in the world.

RCA began building radios and the radio craze took off. RCA had competition with companies like Westinghouse who built radio stations first then built a demand for the product with broadcasts. Although this sometimes made things difficult for RCA it helped in that it redefined RCA as a broadcaster and a radio manufacturer as well as an operator of international telegraph communications. Sarnoff reveled in the fact that it was he that had the vision to see where broadcasting would take RCA. In 1921, Howard Armstrong came up with another discovery. This he called super regeneration. Although it had some bugs to be worked out, Sarnoff didn't want to lose the patents to it like the ones he had lost to Westinghouse. He moved aggressively to purchase rights to the invention from Armstrong. Instead of working with lawyers and middlemen, he went straight to Armstrong. Sarnoff soon found out though that Armstrong was a tough bargainer. Sarnoff eventually obtained the rights by using cash and stocks. This made Armstrong the largest private stockholder in RCA at the time. To avoid letting Armstrong get the best of him again he insisted that Armstrong from now on give RCA first refusal of any future inventions. In 1923, RCA was having some problems with another invention of Armstrong's which RCA obtained from Westinghouse. The "superheterodyne" circuit which worked well was too complex to manufacture. Sarnoff asked Armstrong to simplify it . Armstrong was successful and received another 20,000 shares of stock to add to his already 60,000 shares.

In the late 1920's, radio had become a household item. Sarnoff had seen many changes at RCA. The creation of the National Broadcasting Company, a new president of the corporation, threats by the government with regulation, and increasingly under attack as a monopoly. RCA needed someone to run it that was well known. Edward Nally stepped down as president and Owen Young picked a new president in 1923 by the name of James Harbord. Sarnoff was also appointed vice-president, he was 31. Although he was not president, it fell on his part to train Harbord about the radio industry. Radio was having a profound effect on the country. He didn't remain president for long. The stock market crash of 1929 left Owen D. Young in financial problems. He stepped down as chairman and Harbord filled his spot . Owen knew that RCA needed someone like Sarnoff to keep things going. On January 3,1930, David Sarnoff became the third president of RCA, He was 39.

Sarnoff's next idea in where to go with radio was supplying sight with sound. He wanted to get into the field of television. Unfortunately, many years would pass before this came to fruition. To help him on his way, he recruited a man by the name of Vladimir K. Zworykin. He was destined to be the greatest engineer at RCA. Also about this time the new RCA building was built in 1933. It was the tallest building at the time. Sarnoff had his office on the 53rd floor . It was a corner office with windows facing the north and west. His office had everything you could possibly imagine. It had a secret wall that led to a room with a barber chair, where he was serviced daily. This room also held a wardrobe, a toilet and a shower. At his desk he had a telegraph key installed so he could communicate to a wireless friend named George Winterbottom who was head of the RCA Communications on Broad St. The most interesting fact about this new building was the large red neon "RCA" logo on the building above his office.

The Rockefellers who built this building didn't even have their name on their building. But they felt that RCA and Sarnoff had saved them. John D. Rockefeller wanted to build a Metropolitan Opera at the center of a large commercial development in midtown Manhattan. Unfortunately when the stock market crashed, the opera abandoned the project. Even though sales had slipped for RCA at this time, it was still making quite a bit of money from NBC. Through negotiations with Sarnoff and Young, they made arrangements for radio to take the opera's place and for many of the buildings in the center to be known as "Radio City".

In December, 1933 Sarnoff met with Armstrong at Sarnoff's office. Together they drove out to Columbia University where Armstrong was working on another project. Armstrong had always hated the static that was inherent with radio and was trying to clean it up. What he came up with was "FM", Frequency Modulation. Up until then radio consisted of "AM", amplitude modulation. It was noisy and full of static when there were lightning storms or other such atmospheric conditions. What Sarnoff saw was a room full of tubes and wires. Sarnoff showed little interest. He was more interested in getting television off the ground than a new revolution in radio. The friendship between Sarnoff and Armstrong started to diminish. At the 1939 World's Fair Sarnoff introduced television.

World War II came and Sarnoff wanted to be a part. Anti-Semetism had left him out of World War I , but by pulling a few strings , he was able to get commissioned . He was instrumental in planning the radio communications for D-day. For his services, he was made a General. A title which he would carry for the rest of his life and made sure everyone knew. Armstrong also was a part of WWII. He voluntarily gave all his FM patents to the government for the use of the war. As soon as the war was over, a new war started at home. This one was between Sarnoff and Armstrong.

The war over FM was a battle that eventually killed Armstrong. In a statement by Armstrong he said that he would fight til he was dead or broke. Sarnoff had been instrumental in having FM which originally had been put in the 40-50 Megacycles range moved up to the 88-108 Megacycles range. The old 40 -50 Megacycles range was filled by Sarnoff's baby, television. This basically made all the radios that were built to work on Armstrong's Yankee Network useless. This and some other spats over patent rights made bitter enemies of Armstrong and Sarnoff. By 1954, Armstrong had spent millions fighting the big RCA which had much time and money on its side. His patents on FM were running out as well. In 1953, his lawyers urged him to settle. Unhappily he did. He wouldn't see the money though until 1961. On January 31,1954, Armstrong jumped out of a thirteenth story window. Sarnoff learned about the death of his once friend and made a statement, "I didn't kill Armstrong." His death obviously had left him shaken. For five years the annual reports of RCA contained a sentence "A patent infringement suit brought against the Corporation and NBC,Inc. by Edwin H. Armstrong is pending in the District Court of the United States for the District of Delaware." He knew what the litigation was doing to his old friend ,but the corporate interests always prevailed.

Something Sarnoff was working on as well as television was the introduction of color television. In May, 1954, Sarnoff announced to the shareholders that color television was to be introduced in a 19" package. This was his final triumph, although it came with many setbacks and frustrations. RCA was being hassled by Philco, Motorola, and Westinghouse over the rights to RCA's color tube. Knowing when to settle, he agreed to add all of RCA's 100 patents on color television to a pool of color patents that any manufacturer could draw from royalty free. This allowed television sets to be built by other manufacturers and proliferated the use of color broadcasts. Up until then NBC was the main user of color programs. CBS only had a couple of programs and ABC had none.

In 1961,Zenith, the last holdout among manufacturers to build color sets, said they would start making color sets. At this time, Sarnoff tripled RCA's advertising budget for color television. He installed free sets in the White House, Blair House, and influential offices of newspapers. He did everything he could to promote color television. It eventually caught on. His investments in color began to pay off and color was becoming the accepted medium. Sarnoff was now reaching his mid sixties.

Sarnoff was now concerned about his own future. He had achieved just about everything he could possibly achieve, but he wanted more. He now looked into advancing his rank in the military. Others had been promoted to Major General in the Reserves, why not he. He made several attempts to be promoted but never made it. He would have to be satisfied with just Brigadier General. He then went on to lobby for other medals and awards. He even received a "Father of the Year" award. By 1965, he decided that a book about him needed to be written. He employed the services of his cousin and personal friend Eugene Lyons. After he read the first draft, he became upset with Lyon's because he felt he had not portrayed him in the best of lights. In 1966, David Sarnoff was released. Most reviewers felt it was hagiography. He then decided to have another book compiled about him called Looking Ahead. This one didn't go over very well either. Although his books weren't going over very well, he had another idea of how to keep his legacy alive.

David Sarnoff had several children. One of whom was Robert Sarnoff. David Sarnoff more or less manipulated RCA in to grooming Robert for David's position as president of RCA. On January 1, 1965, Robert Sarnoff became president of RCA. David Sarnoff became the chairman of the board. One of Robert's first changes to the company was the change of the RCA logo. The old encircled letters underscored by a lightning bolt gave way to large bulbous squared letters. The secondary trademarks of Nipper and "His Master's Voice," were put aside as well. Finally, the very name of Radio Corporation of America was done away with as well. From now on it would be known as RCA Corporation. David was not happy. He threatened to call a meeting to have the name reinstated. Robert relented and the old name stayed, although it was hardly used. RCA changed in a number of ways. RCA used to be a radio company with little interests outside of this world. Now RCA had become a conglomerate, acquiring such companies as Hertz Rent-a-car, Random House Publishing, and Banquet Foods. Earnings made on color television started to diminish.

Sarnoff's health was starting to diminish. In 1968, he came down with shingles. This was a prelude of things to come. He developed an infection in his mastoids. He had several surgeries to try and cure it but it didn't work. It eventually spread to his nervous system. It slowly ate away his ability to see, speak, or hear. In 1970, he was moved to his house to die. He eventually died on December 12,1971.

Sarnoff had spent his whole life trying to make something for himself. Along the way he made a lot of enemies. He also made a lot of advancements in the world of "broadcasting." His foresight allowed him to plan for the future of radio and television, as well as become the head of one of the largest companies around, RCA.

References

Lewis,Tom Empire of the Air Harper Collins 1991 "RCA's Comeback," Time, Jan 4,1963

Dreher, Carl Sarnoff, An American Success Quadrangle/ New York Times Book Co. 1977

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