David Sarnoff — media (rca/nbc) with roots in the Russian Empire
David Sarnoff was born on 27 February 1891 into a poor Jewish family in Uzlyany, a small town in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire, now in Belarus, the son of Abraham Sarnoff and Leah Privin. As a boy he spent several years preparing to become a Talmudic scholar. His father emigrated first and raised the money to bring the family over, and in 1900, aged nine, David crossed with his mother and siblings to New York.
He helped support the family by selling newspapers before and after classes at the Educational Alliance, and when his father died in 1906 he became, as eldest son, the household's provider. He learned Morse code and joined the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America, serving at stations on ships, on Nantucket and, from 1912, as manager of the station in the Wanamaker department store in New York. In April 1912 the station received messages from ships rescuing survivors of the Titanic, and Sarnoff relayed the news to the press; the often-repeated account that he stayed at the key for seventy-two hours is told by some sources as fact and by others as legend.
When American Marconi was absorbed into the new Radio Corporation of America in 1919, he became its commercial manager, and in 1921, as general manager, he broadcast the Dempsey-Carpentier boxing match. In 1926 RCA formed the National Broadcasting Company; Sarnoff is often called the founder of RCA as well, but he founded only NBC. He became president of RCA on 3 January 1930.
He backed television research, including the work of Vladimir Zworykin, transferred to RCA in 1930, set up an experimental station in 1928 and in April 1939 appeared in the first public demonstration of television at the New York World's Fair. During the Second World War he served on General Eisenhower's staff as a communications consultant, received the Legion of Merit, and was made a reserve brigadier general (in 1944 or 1945; sources differ) of the Signal Corps; afterwards he preferred to be called "General Sarnoff".
He became chairman of RCA in 1947 and retired in 1970; the company's research centre at Princeton was renamed the David Sarnoff Laboratories in 1951. He died in New York on 12 December 1971, aged eighty.
"His father emigrated first and raised the fares; David, aged nine, followed with his mother and siblings in 1900, settling in New York."
Migration storyTracing the roots — Uzlyany, Minsk Governorate (now Belarus)
Born in 1891 in Uzlyany, a small town in the Minsk Governorate of the Russian Empire, he prepared as a boy for Talmudic study and emigrated with his mother and siblings to New York in 1900, aged nine, after his father had gone ahead.
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Uzlyany, Minsk Governorate (now Belarus). At the time, this region lay within the Russian Empire, which spanned from Poland to the Pacific.
A career defined by ambition
"I have observed that the world has suffered far less from ignorance than from pretensions to knowledge."