The early days of television
had strong Union connections.
In 1945, the electrical engineering power laboratory, in what is now known as Steinmetz Hall, had several large cartons marked “TELEVISION” stored along one wall. No one appeared interested in them, and there they sat, unopened. I had an assignment as proctor in the Alpha Delta Phi house, which was then being used as one of the college dormitories. Another young engineer, Andrew Pletenik, was then an instructor in the Electrical Engineering Department. Part of his duties was to serve as a proctor in another fraternity house, then being used as a dormitory. Proctors were then compensated by free room and board (at Hale House). Hence Andrew and I dined together frequently and became close friends.
He asked Professor Harold W. Bibber, chairman of the Electrical Engineering Department, about the contents of these cartons. Bibber said they had been donated to the College by the General Electric Company and that we could open then if we so desired. In them we found a beautiful wooden floor-mounted cabinet having a top that was hinged at the back and a mirror attached to its underside, a cathode ray picture tube (black and white) about ten inches in diameter, a power supply chassis, an audio and radio frequency chassis, and a separate folded dipole antenna.
We assembled these several components in a room on the second floor of Steinmetz Hall. The picture tube was mounted vertically in the lower part of the cabinet, and the hinged top, with the mirrored underside, could be positioned at any angle near 45 degrees. Hence the picture could be seen by anyone in the room.
The large antenna had to be installed outdoors. We went over to the administration building (now Feigenbaum Hall) and found Professor Charles T. Male, who was serving as college engineer. He had all of the drawings for the College buildings, so we were able to find the height of the parapet above ground. Then we went over to the building and grounds shop and borrowed a suitable extension ladder (about forty feet long). With this we were able to get up on the roof and secure the antenna mast to the back of the parapet, just above the window of the second floor room containing the TV set.
Much to our surprise, it all worked.
At that time, WRGB was the only TV station in the area, and it only operated several evenings a week, all with locally-produced programs. Andrew and I then visited the TV studio to see where the programs originated. The studio was in a building at the northwest comer of State Street and Washington Avenue, which is now a part of the Schenectady County Community College. We were cordially greeted by the TV station staff and watched the production of the show (with local talent). When the manager learned that we were from Union, he led us into his office, where he had a large framed map of the Capital District. A colored pin was inserted for each television receiver in the area (about fifty pins total). He added another pin for our Union TV set and put us on the mailing list for future programming. Word spread quickly among the College community that the EE Department had a TV set. Many of the curious came to see it work, but the very limited programming did not attract a rush of viewers. Later on, GE installed a TV relay station on top of Mt. Beacon (just south of Poughkeepsie), which could receive TV signals from New York City and relay them to the Helderberg Mountains, where the WRGB transmitter was (and still is) located.
-Malcolm Horton '45
The Mountebanks were early performers
In April 1942 the Mountebanks presented “The Playboy of The Western World,” a classic by John M. Synge, the renowned Irish playwright. (My library still holds the original published script we used, complete with pencilled stage directions). During some of the rehearsals and performances, a director from WRGB sat in the rear of Hanna Hall taking notes; in those early days, they were looking for readymade programs to use.
Since “remotes” were very rare in those days, we were to perform the play at the new WRGB studio in downtown Schenectady, on Washington Avenue across from the Van Curler Hotel. On April 20, 1942, the Mountebanks presented what we were told was the first full-length, three-act play ever televised anywhere. Unfortunately the only record I have of that show is a photo of the set that was built at the studio.
During June 1942, President Dixon Ryan Fox contacted me at home in Lake George asking me if I could come to Schenectady to be in a short dramatization on television about John Howard Payne, who attended Union for a short time. I can't remember now what the play was about, but I certainly did not turn down an offer to play young Payne. So, on July 3, 1942 (probably part of some holiday programming), we did “Ode to Liberty.” On the back of the one photo I have of that show is written the title, date, and “Presented by faculty and students of Union College.”
I don't recognize the faculty member standing with me nearest the camera, nor do I remember any of the other four students. I'll be happy to send copies of the picture to any cast member who can identify himself.
The Concordiensis of March 5, 1943, has an article reporting that Shakespeare's “Twefth Night” was to be presented by the Mountebanks “and will be given over television the following week.” So once again a director from WRGB sat through some rehearsals and performances to set up his camera angles and cues. In March 1943, the Mountebanks performed what was certainly the first full-length Shakespearian play to be televised.
WRGB received its commercial license in March 1942, and as Mal Horton has said, there were only about fifty TV receivers in the local area. While the audience was limited. Union can still claim some “firsts” in the then brand-new medium of commercial television.
-Edward Dahlstedt '45
In at the beginning
Much of the early research and development of television came in Schenectady, and the call letters of the country's oldest television station honor a Union alumnus.
One of the first to achieve success with television was Dr. E.F.W. Alexanderson of the General Electric Co. In the late 1920s he devised a crude, mechanical method for television production (his correspondence and notebooks are in the College's Special Collections).
In 1928, GE engineers took equipment to Albany and televised Gov. Alfred E. Smith's acceptance of the Democratic nomination for president-television's first remote broadcast. Two years later, the company projected pictures on a seven-foot screen before an audience at Schenectady's Proctor's Theater-the first public look at television. And in 1939, W2XB (as the station was called) broadcast the first long-distance reception of modern television, relaying pictures of the King and Queen of England visiting the New York World's Fair that had been sent by NBC's transmitter on top of the Empire State Building.
That fall, General Electric asked John Sheehan '25 and John G.T. Gilmour '27 to manage the station. Not surprisingly, many broadcasts in those early years featured Union people. One show starred Professor Egbert Bacon, who gave a half-hour illustrated talk about postage stamps. Football Coach Nels Nitchman and several of his players made television appearances to demonstrate plays and techniques, and in 1943 a condensed version of the College's V-12 physical fitness program was televised from the station's studios. As the accompanying stories explain, the Mountebanks starred in several productions.
The station's call letters changed to WRGB in 1940-a tribute to Walter R.G. Baker '16, a GE vice president who was one of the key figures in television's development. His many honors included election to the Broadcast Pioneers Hall of Fame.
In 1944 Baker predicted that within five years of the end of World War II, television service would be available to nearly two-thirds of the population of the country. He was right. By the early 1950s WRGB was carrying shows from all the major networks and producing nineteen live shows at its studio. Two more stations appeared in the area, and by 1954 WRGB was on the air eighteen hours day, seven days a week.