Here is a very interesting video from RCA. It was released in 1942, but it looks to me as if it was produced BEFORE the Pearl Harbor attack and the U.S. entry into World War II. There is no mention of the war nor of RCA's support for the war effort. All films like this that were produced during the war have a lot of material about how the company was contributing to the war effort. So I think this is really a pre-war film.
Early in the film they link the origins of RCA Labs to a decrepit "radio shack" at Riverhead, Long Island (NY) in 1919. Here is some background on this:
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In this film we see Vladimir Zworykin (boo, hiss) of TV fame (no mention of poor Philo Farnsworth), and we also see Harold Beverage, the creator of the antenna that bears his name. There is what must have been one of the first "electronic clocks."
At the end, the segment on television is really interesting. It is amazing how far they had gone with TV before the war.
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And just to think...the did it all in a suit and tie! I watched this at 1.5x speed just to get 'er done, and it even sounds like a 40's movie... yeah... like James Cagney or some whipper snapper newsgirl.
ReplyDeleteThey were certainly up to a lot of stuff, but it reminded me of the news I heard yesterday about phasing out gas stoves (home, restaurant).... too many bad by-products in the air. Then I see all those huge flames in the the RCA labs.
Yea, those flames were pretty wild. Kind of discourages collegiality. One false move and you're toast! 73 Bill
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