MARCH 2001

Hall of Fame:

Learning From Our Predecessors—Celebrating the 100th Birthday of Television/Oscilloscope Expert Allen B. Du Mont

by Frederik Nebeker

Two devices characterize engineering in the 20^th century—the oscilloscope and the television. Allen B. Du Mont (IRE Fellow 1931, AIEE Fellow, 1943) played a pivotal role in the proliferation of both.

Born 29 January 1901, in Brooklyn, New York, Du Mont’s future as an engineer seemed destined early in his life. Struck by poliomyelitis at age 11, he spent almost a year in bed. During this time, he studied the principles of radio and built his own receiver and transmitter.

After earning an electrical engineering degree at Rensselaer Polytechnic, he worked as an engineer for Westinghouse and then became chief engineer of the De Forest Radio Company. Showing great self-confidence despite the turmoil being caused by the Great Depression, Du Mont left this job in 1931 to start his own company. He set up shop in the basement of his Upper Montclair, New Jersey home, developing and manufacturing cathode-ray tubes and associated equipment.

The cathode-ray tube had been invented in 1897 by Ferdinand Braun. Wanting to study rapidly changing currents and voltages, Braun discovered that, when deflected magnetically, an electron beam could serve as an almost inertia-free indicator of such variations. Improvements were made in the decades that followed, but it was not until the 1930s that the device achieved commercial success. And the leader in that success in the United States was none other than Allen B. Du Mont’s company.

Du Mont incorporated as Allen B. DuMont Laboratories in 1935, and the company’s oscilloscopes soon came to be used around the world. Du Mont’s oscilloscope displayed variations in almost any quantity, and proved invaluable in biological, physical and engineering science, and to monitor and troubleshoot equipment of all sorts.

Du Mont’s greatest interest, however, was television. He worked to make television picture tubes live longer and be manufactured more easily. In 1937, his company became the first in the United States to sell television receivers.

His company took an interest and invested in all aspects of television. It established several broadcasting stations, beginning with an experimental station in 1939, and operated a television network (which later became Metromedia Broadcasting) from 1947 to 1955. Du Mont himself served on the National Television System Committee, which set broadcast standards for black-and-white, and later color television.

Du Mont Labs’ phonographs and televisions division was acquired in 1958 by Emerson Radio and Phonograph; its remaining divisions became part of Fairchild Camera and Instrument in 1960. During its tenure, however, Du Mont Labs made a significant contribution to the instrument and television businesses.

Allen Du Mont was an unpretentious man who preferred a simple lifestyle. Once, when his wife pressed him to upgrade his office, he said, "You know, ever since we got successful, all the young fellas in the plant want big, fancy offices. I figure leaving mine this way saves me a lot of arguments."

Du Mont received the Marconi Memorial Medal from the Veteran Wireless Operators Association and honorary doctorates from Rensselaer Polytechnic and from Brooklyn Polytechnic (now Polytechnic University). He died on 15 November 1965, in New York City.

 Frederik Nebeker is Senior Research Historian at the IEEE History Center at Rutgers University. He can be reached at f.nebeker@ieee.org. Visit the IEEE History Center's Web page at: www.ieee.org/organizations/history_center/.