Editing David Sarnoff (section)

==Early life and career==
David Sarnoff was born to a [[Jewish]] family in [[Uzlyany]], a small town in [[Minsk Governorate]], [[Russian Empire]]<ref name="nyt obit" /> (today part of [[Belarus]]), the son of Abraham Sarnoff and Leah Privin. Abraham emigrated to the [[United States]] and raised funds to bring the family. Sarnoff spent much of his early childhood in a [[cheder]] (or [[yeshiva]]) studying and memorizing the [[Torah]]. He emigrated with his mother and three brothers and one sister to [[New York City]] in 1900, where he helped support his family by selling newspapers before and after his classes at the [[Educational Alliance]]. In 1906 his father became incapacitated by [[tuberculosis]], and at age 15 Sarnoff went to work to support the family.<ref name="museumbc">{{Cite web |url=https://www.museum.tv/eotv/sarnoffdavi.htm |title=Museum of Broadcast Communications web site |access-date=2015-07-06 |archive-date=2018-06-21 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180621152041/http://www.museum.tv/eotv/sarnoffdavi.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> He had planned to pursue a full-time career in the newspaper business, but a chance encounter led to a position as an office boy at the [[Commercial Cable Company]]. When his superior refused him  leave for [[Rosh Hashanah]], he joined the [[Marconi Wireless Telegraph Company of America]] on September 30, 1906, and started a career of over {{nowrap|60 years}} in [[electronic communications]].

Over the next {{nowrap|13 years}}, Sarnoff rose from office boy to commercial manager of the company, learning about the technology and the business of electronic communications on the job and in libraries. He also served at Marconi stations on ships and posts on [[Siasconset]], [[Nantucket]] and the New York [[Wanamaker's|Wanamaker Department Store]]. In 1911, he installed and operated the wireless equipment on a ship hunting seals off [[Newfoundland and Labrador]], and used the technology to relay the first remote medical diagnosis from the ship's doctor to a radio operator at [[Belle Isle (Newfoundland and Labrador)|Belle Isle]] with an infected tooth.

The following year, he led two other operators at the Wanamaker station in an effort to confirm the fate of the [[RMS Titanic|''Titanic'']].<ref name="radiohof">{{Cite web |url=https://www.radiohof.org/david_sarnoff.htm |title=Radio Hall of Fame web site |access-date=2015-07-06 |archive-date=2018-04-13 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180413090957/http://www.radiohof.org/david_sarnoff.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> Sarnoff later exaggerated his role as the sole hero who stayed by his [[telegraph key]] for three days to receive information on the ''Titanic''{{'}}s survivors.<ref name="museumbc"/><ref name="Magoun">Magoun, Alexander [https://ethw.org/Images/1/1c/Magoun.pdf "Pushing Technology: David Sarnoff and Wireless Communications"] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150706140132/http://ethw.org/images/1/1c/Magoun.pdf |date=2015-07-06 }} paper presented at 2001 IEEE Conference on the History of Telecommunications</ref> [[Evan Schwartz (author)|Schwartz]] questions whether Sarnoff, who was a manager of the telegraphers by the time of the disaster, was working the key although that brushes aside concerns about corporate hierarchy. The event began on a Sunday when the store would have been closed.<ref>[https://legendsrevealed.com/entertainment/2012/10/01/did-david-sarnoff-work-a-telegraph-three-days-straight-covering-the-titanic-sinking/ Urban Legends Revealed]: Did David Sarnoff Work a Telegraph Three Days Straight Covering the Titanic Sinking?, Retrieved July 6, 2015</ref>

Over the next two years Sarnoff earned promotions to chief inspector and contracts manager for a company whose revenues swelled after Congress passed legislation mandating continuous staffing of commercial shipboard radio stations. That same year Marconi won a patent suit that gave it the coastal stations of the [[United Wireless Telegraph Company]]. Sarnoff also demonstrated the first use of radio on a railroad line, the [[Lackawanna Railroad]] Company's link between [[Binghamton, New York]], and [[Scranton, Pennsylvania]]; and permitted and observed [[Edwin Armstrong]]'s demonstration of his regenerative receiver at the Marconi station at [[Belmar, New Jersey]]. Sarnoff used [[H. J. Round]]'s hydrogen arc transmitter to demonstrate the broadcast of music from the New York Wanamaker station.

This demonstration and the [[American Telephone & Telegraph|AT&T]] demonstrations in 1915 of long-distance wireless telephony inspired the first of many memos to his superiors on applications of current and future radio technologies. Sometime late in 1915 or in 1916 he proposed to the company's president, [[Edward J. Nally]], that the company develop a "radio music box" for the "amateur" market of radio enthusiasts.<ref name="Magoun"/><ref>Benjamin, Louise. [http://users.ipfw.edu/tankel/Syllabi/Fall%202007/COM%20584/Benjamin.pdf "In Search of the Sarnoff 'Radio Music Box' Memo: Nally's Reply."] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20150706212515/http://users.ipfw.edu/tankel/Syllabi/Fall%202007/COM%20584/Benjamin.pdf |date=2015-07-06 }} ''Journal of Radio Studies. ''June 2002. pp 97–106. Retrieved July 5, 2015. The 1915 memo has not been found, but Benjamin and the curator of Sarnoff's papers found a previously mis-filed 1916 memo that did mention a "radio music box scheme" (the word "scheme" at that time usually meant a plan)</ref> Nally deferred on the proposal because of the expanded volume of business during [[World War I]]. Throughout the war years, Sarnoff remained Marconi's Commercial Manager,<ref name="nyt1974"/> including oversight of the company's factory in [[Roselle Park, New Jersey]].