DuMont Laboratories

DuMont Laboratories

DuMont Laboratories was an American television equipment manufacturer. The company was founded in 1931, by inventor Allen B. DuMont. Among the company's developments were long-lasting cathode ray tubes that would be used for television. Another product out of the lab was a DuMont invention, the magic eye tube.[1]

In 1938, the company began manufacturing televisions. To sell televisions, DuMont began the DuMont Television Network in 1946, one of the earliest television networks. Later on, they manufactured cameras and transmitters for television. DuMont equipment was known for its high quality.

In 1956, DuMont shuttered the network and sold what remained of his television operations to John Kluge, who renamed the network Metromedia. DuMont's partner, Thomas T. Goldsmith, remained on Metromedia's board of directors from this time all the way until Kluge sold the stations to the Fox Television Stations Group.

DuMont sold his manufacturing operations in 1960, with the television manufacturing division sold to Emerson Radio, and the research laboratory sold to Fairchild Camera and later developed semiconductor microchips. Robert Noyce, founder of Intel, originally worked for DuMont as an engineer. In the late 1950s, the Dumont laboratory, now owned by Fairchild, developed the original Sony Trinitron color picture tube, under a subcontract.[1]

DuMont televisions outside the United States were assembled under licence in Montreal, Canada by Canadian Aviation Electronics, currently a manufacturer of flight simulator and pilot training equipment.

See also

  • Metromedia
  • Passaic: Birthplace of Television and the DuMont Story

References

  1. ^ a b David Weinstein, The Forgotten Network: DuMont and the Birth of American Television. Temple University Press, 2006, p.11

External links


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