RCA Corporation

The Radio Corporation of America was incorporated in Delaware on October 17, 1919, and changed its name to RCA Corporation on May 9, 1969. For over fifty years it was one of the country's leading manufacturers and vendors of radios, phonographs, televisions, and a wide array of consumer and military electronics products. Through subsidiaries, it operated the country's first radiotelegraph, radiotelephone and radio facsimile systems, as well as its pioneer radio and television networks. The company will always be identified with David Sarnoff (1891-1971), who began working for a predecessor company as an office boy in 1906, became vice president in 1922, president in 1930, and served as chairman from 1947 to1970. Sarnoff was one of the first to grasp the full potential of radio and television and imparted to the company its reputation for research and innovation.

David Sarnoff's son Robert succeeded to the presidency in 1966 and was named CEO in 1968. The younger Sarnoff began a program of conglomerate diversification, acquiring publisher Random House, Inc., and the Hertz Corporation rental car business in 1966. In a makeover designed to erase its historic connection with radio, the Radio Corporation of America became RCA Corporation on May 9, 1969. Robert Sarnoff also began an ill-fated push to make RCA the number two computer manufacturer, but after only a year, RCA sold its entire computer business to Sperry Univac in 1971-73.

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