Scanning the Past

Scanning the Past: A History of Electrical Engineering from the Past

Submitted by Dick Reiman, Historian

Alfred N. Goldsmith

Sixty five years ago this month, the PROCEEDINGS OF THE INSTITUTE OF RADIO ENGINEERS (IRE) included a paper by Alfred N. Goldsmith concerning the need for greater cooperation between the IRE and the radio-electronics industry. At the time he was Chief Broadcast Engineer of the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) and also the President of the IRE.

In his paper, Goldsmith asserted that the field of radio communication had reached a point where more systematic development could be planned through closer cooperation between engineers and industry management. He pointed out that engineers who were IRE members benefited both from attending meetings and from reading PROCEEDINGS papers. He observed that what they gained became a valuable asset to the companies which employed them. He suggested that companies should do their part to facilitate this process by permitting timely release of new technical information and by encouraging publication of PROCEEDINGS papers by their research engineers. He stated that the information published became the "capital of the engineers of tomorrow." He characterized the IRE as an international professional society whose membership included most leading communications engineers from "Singapore to Saskatchewan and from Paris to Portland."

Goldsmith was born in New York City in 1887 and graduated from the College of the City of New York (CCNY) in 1907. In 1911 he received the Ph.D. degree from Columbia University where he studied under Michael I. Pupin. Goldsmith taught at CCNY from 1906 to 1923. Along with Robert Marriott and John V. L. Hogan, Goldsmith negotiated the merger of the Wireless Institute and the Society of Wireless Telegraph Engineers to form the IRE in 1912. He became the first Editor of the PROCEEDINGS, which began publication in 1913, and except for his year as IRE President, continued as Editor through 1954. Thus he devoted most of his working career to the IRE and the PROCEEDINGS which became the preeminent archival journal in communication and electronic engineering during his long tenure.

During World War I, Goldsmith became a Consultant on radio to the General Electric Company and also was in charge of radio schools for the Army Signal Corps and the Navy at CCNY. In 1918 he published a classic book entitled Radio Telephony which contained comprehensive technical information on radio systems in use or under development all over the world. In the introduction he wrote that "communication is the life blood of civilization, of international good will, and of progress." In a 1921 paper entitled " World Communication," he described "an ideal system" which "would be a continuously operative interference-free person-to-person network" which "should include every person of the globe" in a network combining wire and radio.

In 1918 Goldsmith became Research Director of the Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America and the following year was named Director of the Research Department of the newly founded RCA. He remained with RCA in various capacities including Vice President until 1933 when he became an independent consultant. He served on the National Television Systems Committee which recommended standards for commercial television adopted by the Federal Communications Commission in 1941. Goldsmith received the IRE Medal of Honor in 1941 and the Founders Award of the IRE in 1954. He was the first recipient of the Haraden Pratt Award of the IEEE in 1972. This award recognized him for his outstanding record of service to the Institute which "no one has performed so well, for so long a time, with such unswerving devotion to truth and excellence." He received 122 United States patents covering inventions mostly related to radio, television, and facsimile broadcasting and receiving systems. He attended his last meeting of the IEEE Board of Directors in March 1972 and died in St. Petersburg, FL, in July 1974. He left a generous bequest from his estate to the IEEE Foundation.

James E. Brittain

School of History, Technology, and Society, Georgia Institute of Technology