History In The Making…The Start Of RCA’s World’s Fair Exhibit

History In The Making…The Start Of RCA’s World’s Fair Exhibit

In these newly discovered photos. we see from left to right NBC President Lexon Lohr and RCA Chairman David Sarnoff signing the agreement to build the RCA Exhibition Building with Grover Whalen, who was President of the World’s Fair Corporation.

I don’t have a firm date for this, but suspect this is 1937. The photos are among the first that show us the original RCA Iconoscope studio cameras in NBC Studio 3H. These dark color cameras precede the RCA A500 Iconoscope cameras, which were painted silver.

The NYWF of 1939–1940 was the first exposition to be based on the future, with an opening slogan of “Dawn of a New Day”, and it allowed all visitors to take a look at “the world of tomorrow”.

Until just before the fair opened on April 30, 1939, Studio 3H was under the control of RCA and had been since it was converted from radio in 1935. In early April, 3H was put under the control of NBC Television in preparation for the network’s official launch which occurred on April 30, 1939 with live broadcasts of the fair’s opening with remarks from President Franklin Roosevelt. Enjoy and share!


Source

2 Comments

  1. Robert Franklin July 13, 2014

    They also had a spot indoors and one outdoors where you could stand in front of a camera and see yourself on TV!! That was amazing!

  2. John Holt July 12, 2014

    A RCA 50A inductor microphone pointed straight down.