The Dawning of the Electrical Age: The Story of Two Towns and Two Luminaries (Part II)
Wireless Communication: Roselle Park, David Sarnoff and the Radio
For a greater understanding and continuity, it is recommended that you read Part I first
In November of 1886, Heinrich Hertz became the first person to transmit radio (electromagnetic) waves over a very short distance. Hertz was motivated by Maxwell’s equations which predicted in 1860 that such waves existed and traveled at the speed of light. Like Edison and the Edison Effect, Hertz could not think of a practical application for his discovery. Guglielmo Marconi, however, expanded Hertz’s work and in 1896 was granted a patent for wireless communications. Five years later, Marconi transmitted radio waves across the Atlantic.
In the first two decades of the 1900s, Marconi’s wireless radio systems used Morse code to transmit messages. The word radio is derived from the fact that signals from transmitters radiate in all directions thereby providing a broader range compared to traditional telegraph lines which were point to point. Furthermore, wireless radio systems enabled ship to ship communication at sea and could send multiple messages using the same hardware by varying the frequency of the signal.
With the turn of the century came new methods of transportation and communication. Just as the railroad and the telegraph emerged together in the previous century, likewise, the airplane and the radio shared a similar simultaneous development. Railroads could receive messages from telegraph lines that ran adjacent to the railway. Airplanes, however, required a different medium, one like the plane itself that could travel through the airways.
Although Marconi was given credit for the invention of the radio, it is important to note that he infringed on several of Tesla’s patents to transmit radio waves over long distances. Disputes and controversy over the invention of the radio loomed, but Marconi was granted the rights and awarded the Nobel Prize in 1909.
In the early 1900s, international investments were made in wireless infrastructures, which over time brought an end to hardwired telegraph lines. Marconi established a wireless telegraph station and manufacturing plant in Roselle Park, New Jersey. During colonial times, Roselle and Roselle Park were one town and part of Elizabethtown (now Union County). Roselle Park is smaller than Roselle (approximately 1.2 square miles and 13,000 people) and for decades the two towns were rivals at the annual Thanksgiving Day High School football game.
The citizens of Roselle made their contribution to the NFL through their favorite son Rosey Grier. Roselle Park made its mark by sending one of its native sons, Rick Barry, to the NBA Basketball Hall of Fame. Barry is the only player in basketball history to lead the NCAA, ABA and NBA in scoring. Rick would also have several sons to play in the NBA. Like its neighbor, Roselle, Roselle Park’s history was also inextricably linked to General Electric (GE).
As fate would have it, during World War I, some transatlantic telegraph lines were cut making the Allies more dependent upon wireless communication. The United States government viewed this as a national security risk and asked General Electric to oversee wireless telegraph systems in the United States particularly the Marconi wireless telegraph systems. Moreover, the US government was not comfortable with foreign-owned companies manufacturing equipment that was vital to its national security.
Due to the nature and magnitude of this endeavor, and the post-war market potential; on December 1, 1919, GE formed a smaller company, the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and assigned all wireless operations to this new company under the de facto leadership of David Sarnoff. The formation of this company provided growth potential for RCA and Sarnoff. Marconi’s Roselle Park wireless telegraph station was later transformed into one of the first regularly broadcast radio stations in America, WDY.
This was the beginning of practical applications of vacuum tubes and the radio as we know it today. Instead of encoding the message in the carrier frequency, which was previously used to transmit Morse code, the modulated sound or voice became the message. As vacuum tubes became more efficient, powerful and miniature, the modulated signal could be transmitted further, and several tubes could be incorporated into the design. The first method used was Amplitude Modulation (AM) where sound was used to modulate the carrier frequency. Each radio station was tuned to a unique carrier frequency. At the receiving end, the carrier frequency was stripped or demodulated and what remained was the sound or voice.
Sarnoff recognized immediately the commercial potential of the radio and the broadcasting of the Jack Dempsey and George Carpentier boxing match in 1921 by RCA was a major contributing factor to the post-World War I radio boom. RCA quickly became a major player in the communication industry and a key contributor to the development of both radio and television as mediums.
The life of David Sarnoff is the life of the American Dream and demonstrates how America, at the turn of the 20th century, was strengthened by the huddled masses of immigrants yearning to breathe free. His life is one of those rags to riches stories of which every American should be proud. He was born in 1891 in a small Russian town, five years after Heinrich Hertz demonstrated the process of producing and detecting electromagnetic waves. He immigrated to America in 1900, one year before Marconi’s transatlantic wireless transmission, and he was raised in the Jewish immigrant ghetto of New York’s Lower East Side.
As a schoolboy in a school for immigrants, David was told a story about a log cabin boy that grew up to become president. This story resonated and it inspired him to do great things. As he rose up the latter, there would be two pictures in his office, one of Marconi and the other of Abraham Lincoln. Like most people of poverty, Sarnoff was driven to some extent by money, but his paramount motivation was to achieve the status of an American and a conscious determination to identify himself with his new country. He rose from office boy to chief executive of one of the largest corporations in America. He was, however, propelled as much by fate and luck as he was by ambition.
Like Steve Jobs in the later years of the century, David Sarnoff was not a design engineer or a man known for his technical prowess but rather the right man at the right time in history. Both were able to align themselves with the emerging technologies of their day and anticipated how such technologies could benefit the public. Sarnoff is quoted as saying that he “hitched his wagon to the electron instead of the proverbial star.” Yet, Sarnoff’s star began to rise when it was reported in April 1912, that he deciphered a relayed message from the RMS Titanic, once deemed to be unsinkable, had hit an iceberg and was now sinking.
The Titanic was the largest, fastest and most luxurious ship of its time and the pride of the British shipbuilding world. It was reported that for three days and three nights Sarnoff remained glued to Marconi’s wireless station to report the status of the Titanic. Whether this story is true or apocryphal, it however, did much to enhance the young Sarnoff’s reputation and he quickly rose through the ranks of Marconi’s company. It was indeed this tragic event that launched wireless communications into the public sphere.
As the head of RCA, Sarnoff ushered in several innovations in both radio and television. He was among the first to envision the radio as an entertainment medium. There were many detractors in his day, most noted was novelist H.G. Wells, (author of The War of the Worlds) who saw Sarnoff luminance and future products as short-lived and naïve. Yet, time would prove his critics wrong.
Edison’s phonograph and the radio were a marriage made in heaven. It was Sarnoff’s goal to turn the radio into a music box in which every radio station would have a phonograph to transmit music with revenue generated by advertisements. RCA went as far as to acquire Victor Records, a phonograph and record company. In addition to music, radio shows (sponsored by companies) were another feature of the radio along with real-time news reports. In fact, soap operas got their name because they were sponsored by soap companies.
Sarnoff was also among the first to envision radios in automobiles and a television in every home. RCA made a fortune by selling the combination of a radio, phonograph and television all in one console. One of his monikers was the “prophet” and, in this capacity, he brought forth several ideas that help to shape the social and economic landscape of the 20th century.
Sarnoff’s vision was not one radio station, but a network of radio stations and ultimately television stations centered around major US cities. The broadcasting business was big business, and RCA was getting too big for its britches. In 1926, it formed the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and in 1943 the American Broadcasting Company (ABC). Television followed in the footsteps of radio and the establishment of radio networks was key to the emergence of television as a medium.
Light, television and radio waves are part of the electromagnetic spectrum of which only a small portion is visible to the naked eye. Since electromagnetic waves radiated in all directions, the television station located in New York City also covered northern New Jersey and the one located in Philadelphia covered the southern half of the state.
In 1929, Sarnoff met Vladimir Zworykin, a fellow Russian emigrant, and this association would give birth to television as we know it today. Although many experimented with early television designs, few had the financial backing, research and network infrastructure of RCA. By the mid-1950s, television was an integral part of the social landscape. The Space Age emerged with the television and brought the wonders not only of this world but of worlds beyond our own into living rooms across America.
But with success came competition. Just as Rockefeller had tried to destroy Edison’s light bulb to maintain his monopoly on gas lighting, and Edison had tried to destroy Westinghouse and Tesla’s Alternating Current (AC) to promote his inferior system of Direct Current (DC), David Sarnoff and RCA played hardball with its competitors. It used its power, wealth and connections with the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to crush or diminish them. But, in Sarnoff’s case, in his attempt to destroy or take credit for their products, he destroyed the people that created them.
The stress placed on Philo Farnsworth to invalidate his television patents nearly drove him insane and the pressure placed on Edwin Armstrong to deny him credit for the Frequency Modulation (FM) radio drove him to commit suicide. Despite such efforts, Farnsworth was eventually given credit for the invention of the electronic television set and Armstrong’s FM system, which offered superior sound quality in stereo, eventually became the dominant radio medium.
RCA made Sarnoff as much as Sarnoff made RCA. Ironically, both RCA and NBC would be acquired later by General Electric. David Sarnoff was a giant and a luminary and his contribution to the entertainment and news industries over decades was monumental. Television was the natural evolution of the radio. The social and economic impact of these two mediums cannot be overstated.
Edison and Sarnoff were visionaries with strong business acumen and a nose for future technologies. Hence, the contributions of these two individuals and small towns have been both profound and unique. They helped to shape the 20th century and henceforth the world would never be the same. Who would have imagined that the seeds planted in these small towns would later germinate into flowers whose sweet fragrances we still smell today? Their stories stand as a testimony of how serendipitous events and technology can combine to change the landscape of a century and I can’t help but wonder who will be the Edisons and Sarnoffs of the 21st century and beyond. Both were essential to the history of an unprecedented technological century and they serve as exemplars of Yankee ingenuity and enterprise.
As Americans, we must always remember that the pulse of this great nation beats from the hearts of small towns like Roselle and Roselle Park. Each with its own identity, story and contribution, each linked together by cultures and traditions forged over time to become the United States of America.
Legacy
When we think of the 20th century, we think of the major events that helped to define it. Its world wars, The Space Age, The Cold War and the Civil Rights movement. We, however, seldom recognize perhaps the most defining element: the development of an electrical infrastructure which was the catalyst to many events. Radio emerged from the smoldering ashes of World War I and likewise, television and computers from the ashes of the Second World War. But it all began at the turn of the century and a series of technological achievements of which Edison and Sarnoff played major roles.
Every solution bears the seeds of another problem and the vacuum tube was no exception. Although it had many advantages, like its antecedent light bulb, it had its inherent flaws. For instance, it was prone to burnouts and vibration; it was bulky and power-consuming: initiating a space-age search for alternatives to solve such problems. Its successor, the solid-state transistor, invented at Bell Labs in New Jersey, implemented its functions in miniature using semiconductors without the inherent problems associated with vacuum tubes rendering such devices obsolete.
Similarly, transistors transformed the times and without it, The Space Age would not have been possible. Transistors also gave rise to miniature portable (transistor)radios which in turn created Japanese electronic innovations and companies such as Sony. Its portability, size and low power changed the way that people socially interacted. It was the first palm-held device that provided real-time information and entertainment to the general public.
Furthermore, the transistor was an integral part of the 1950s and 1960s boom of Rock and Roll, Jazz, Rock and Soul music. Radio and television helped to bring forth a new type of revolution: not only of music but of social change bearing witness in the streets, classrooms and offices around the world of the events that shaped both decades.
The post-World War II baby boomers were ripe for the expansion and miniaturization of electronics as both television and the radio emerged as solid-state medium that carried the news of moon landings, social unrest, war and entertainment previously unseen. Such innovations also helped to shape the political landscape. For instance, it was reported that John Kennedy’s 1960 presidential victory over Richard Nixon was a result of how they both appeared on TV, and the horrors of the Vietnam War were seen in living rooms across America in living color.
Moreover, throughout the century, the electronic industry continued to snowball as one invention stood on the shoulders of the other. The first electronic computer, EINAC, contained 20,000 vacuum tubes and weighed 30 tons. Today, a standard computer chip contains billions of transistors and can fit on your fingertip. Color Televisions, Microwave Ovens, CD/DVD Players, Personal Computers, Cable TV and Smartphones all owe their existence to the transistor. Although the transistor remains an essential element, the Integrated Circuit (IC) has replaced it as the fundamental building block of digital circuitry.
Mark Twain is believed to have said: “History doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme.” Just as Edison returned to his ancestral home in New Jersey, the coinventor of the transistor and 1956 Nobel Prize winner, William Shockley, left Bell Labs in New Jersey to return to his familial home in California. In 1956, he formed his own company, Shockley Semiconductor, in Mountain View, CA. Among his many skills was an eye for talent, and he recruited and nurtured the best and brightest. Most noted were: Robert Noyce and Gordon Moore, the latter the author of Moore’s law.
This was the genesis of Silicon Valley. In fact, Silicon Valley derives its name from the Silicon used in its transistors. Because of Shockley’s management style and difficult personality, several engineers (known as the traitorous eight, including Noyce and Moore) left his company to join Fairchild Semiconductor from which the Integrated Circuit (chip), coinvented by Noyce and Moore, emerged in 1959.
In 1968, Noyce and Moore formed Intel which developed microprocessor chips used in several Personal Computers most noted was IBM’s Personal Computer (PC). In 1980, IBM hired Bill Gates’ company Microsoft to develop the Operating System (OS) for the PC. Blinded by the success of its mainframe computers, IBM neglected the market potential of the PC and allowed others to clone them and moreover allowed Gates to keep the rights to its OS. Microsoft continued to improve on its OS and the rest is history. Because of such innovations, mainframe computers, which dominated the first three decades of computing were replaced by a more distributed process centered around PCs.
As integrated circuits continued to expand in accordance with Moore’s law, the bit size and speed of computers increased along with the miniaturization and sophistication of digital devices. Furthermore, assembly languages were replaced by higher-ordered software languages such as C and C++; thus, forming the spine of a new body of software-driven computers. Such devices introduced a new type of social awareness, homogeneity and access to information via the Internet.
Once known for the hardware that it produced, Silicon Valley is now known as the Mecca of Social Media innovation. The ubiquitous presence of smartphones, in the dawn of this century, is a merger of wireless technologies and computers developed in the previous century. All of this started with the light bulb as if the light that emanated was a beacon, symbol and a metaphor for brighter ideas to come in the 20th century and beyond.
I am fortunate to have been born during interesting times, to be a proud native son of Roselle, to have started (and later return to end) my engineering career at General Electric and to have spent thirty years working for Fairchild. During my youth, I heard stories about my hometown being the first town in the world to have electricity and the achievements of the radio station in Roselle Park. Such stories inspired me to become an engineer. In this regard, and others, this story is an analog of my American journey.
