My earliest experience with television was when I was still a student in South Carolina. I think a great deal of credit is due to him for producing the practice, things that had been done long before you were born that led up to television. He was a contributor to the large-scale production of television. We are not going to be reciting that Allen Du Mont is the inventor of television that is not so. One friend of mine wrote a book titled Five Thousand Years of Television. It's not one person but a group of people, some of them from the Bell Telephone Laboratories and Radio Corporation of America, many people from foreign countries that contributed a little here and a little there over the years.

Well, in my early experience in television, people in South Carolina asked me questions sometimes about who invented television. Why don't you start right back at the beginning? First, I think you should give us a little bit of your own background. Thomas Goldsmith on May 14, 1973, regarding various affairs with the DuMont Television Company. INTERVIEW: Thomas Goldsmith INTERVIEWED BY: Frank Polkinghorn PLACE: Verona, New Jersey DATE: May 14, 1973 Thomas Goldsmith, an oral history conducted in 1973 by Frank Polkinghorn, IEEE History Center, Piscataway, NJ, USA It is recommended that this oral history be cited as follows: Request for permission to quote for publication should be addressed to the IEEE History Center Oral History Program, IEEE History Center, 445 Hoes Lane, Piscataway, NJ 08854 USA or It should include identification of the specific passages to be quoted, anticipated use of the passages, and identification of the user. No part of the manuscript may be quoted for publication without the written permission of the Director of IEEE History Center. All literary rights in the manuscript, including the right to publish, are reserved to the IEEE History Center. This manuscript is being made available for research purposes only. Interview # 008 for the IEEE History Center, The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Inc. THOMAS GOLDSMITH: An Interview Conducted by Frank Polkinghorn, IEEE History Center, May 14, 1973 the negative role of Paramount Pictures as an investor in DuMont Laboratories the sale, in 1957, of DuMont's television receiver line to Emerson, and the merger of DuMont and Fairchild Industries in 1960. The interview concludes with a detailed discussion of the business affairs of DuMont after the war, including the spin-off of broadcasting operations into what eventually became Metromedia, Inc. Goldsmith also comments on the 'Great Television Freeze' and its impact on the DuMont company. The interview includes a discussion of the impact of WWII on commercial broadcasting, and the history of DuMont's work in radar during the war. Interwoven in this discussion are comments on the development of color television, including work done by Bell Laboratories, and the development of broadcasting standards by the RMA and the NTSC. Goldsmith goes on to discuss Du Mont's early experimental transmitting signals, the television displays by DuMont and RCA at the 1939 World's Fair and the experimental channels operated by RCA, CBS, and DuMont. Goldsmith also talks about Du Mont's early work with Lee DeForest at DeForest Radio Company, reminiscences that both Du Mont and De Forest shared with him. The interview continues with a discussion of the forming of the Allen B.

Goldsmith also discusses Allen Du Mont's early background, including Du Mont's work as a shipboard operator, his education at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, and his engineering job at Westinghouse. The interview with Thomas Goldsmith begins with his early interest in both radio and television.

Goldsmith then returned to Furman University as a physics professor and director of the audio-visual department. Upon receiving his doctorate, Goldsmith went to work for Du Mont as a director of research, a position he held until he left the company in 1966. It was as a graduate student that Goldsmith first had contact with the Allen B.

in physics from Cornell University in 1936, where he was involved in research on cathode ray devices. Thomas Goldsmith attended Furman University in South Carolina, graduating in 1931.

4.11 Influence of Du Mont on Other Companies.

4.10 DuMont, Paramount and Business Difficulties.

4.6 Fall of Du Mont and Rise of Metromedia.

4.4 From Nipkow Disks to Cathode Ray Tubes.

4.2.2 Cold, Hot and High-vacuum Cathodes.

Dumont cathode ray oscillograph