Radio Corporation of America
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| Fate | Acquired by GE in 1986, various divisions liquidated |
|---|---|
| Founded | October 17, 1919 (as Radio Corporation of America) |
| Defunct | 1986 |
| Headquarters | New York City, New York, U.S. |
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Key people
|
David Sarnoff, first general manager |
| Products |
RCA Photophone Phonograph records Electric Phonograph Videodisc Televisions Radios |
| Divisions |
RCA Records NBC |
| Website | www |
RCA Corporation, founded as the Radio Corporation of America, was an American electronics company in existence from 1919 to 1986. General Electric took over the company in late 1985 and split it up the following year.
The RCA trademarks are used by Sony Music Entertainment and Technicolor, which licenses the RCA brand name to other companies such as Voxx International and TCL Corporation for products descended from that common ancestor.
After World War I began in August 1914, radio traffic across the Atlantic Ocean increased dramatically after the western Allies cut the German transatlantic telegraph cables. Germany, Austria-Hungary, and their allies in Europe (collectively known as the Central Powers) maintained contact with neutral countries in the Americas via long-distance radio communications, as well as telegraph cables owned by neutral countries such as the Netherlands and Denmark.
In 1917 the government of the United States took charge of the patents owned by the major companies involved in radio manufacture in the United States to devote radio technology to the war effort. All production of radio equipment was allocated to the U.S. Army, U.S. Navy, U.S. Marine Corps, and the U.S. Coast Guard. The War Department and the Navy Department sought to maintain a federal monopoly of all uses of radio technology. The wartime takeover of all radio systems ended late in 1918, when the U.S. Congress failed to pass a bill which would have extended this monopoly. The war ended in November of that year.
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Wikipedia