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David Sarnoff, 1891-1971
As a young wireless telegraph operator in 1915, David Sarnoff submitted an idea to the Marconi Corporation for a "radio music box" that would make radio a "household utility," like a piano or phonograph. His idea was dismissed as "folly" at the time, but in 1926 Sarnoff achieved his dream by creating the National Broadcasting Company -- the first network to have national broadcasts of music, news, and sports. His next giant step came at the 1939 World's Fair, when he introduced television: "Now we add sight to sound." Television was a new art he envisioned as "a torch of hope in a troubled world." Sarnoff believed broadcasting had a "gift for democratizing" since people everywhere would have equal access to programming despite their economic status. NBC began its commercial television broadcasting in 1941 from WNBT in New York City, but the onset of World War II interrupted its development until 1945.
S.J. Woolf, 1941 |