The History of Television

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Many Americans today go home and flip on the television, but many do not take the time to think about the complexity of this great invention that is common to us. Nearly sixty years ago television barely existed and was not thought to be used as a broad communicator like it is used in today’s generation. Through its starting, stopping, then restarting in the 1940’s, television took off and expanded greatly in just a few short decades and had great technological breakthroughs to allow it a widespread range of uses. Though technologies existed in the forties, the great advancement and possibility that television would have, were not yet explored. Just as the radio, television was a process being experimented with, worked, and transformed into a sufficient idea. What was television for in the early 1940’s? How was it used? How did it progress into the 1960’s? What great advancements that took place between the two decades? These are questions many people may think of, but never quite get the answer to how we got the great television advancement we have today.
In the early 1940’s, television was something not many Americans had heard of. During this decade television had one basic goal: development. At this time World War II was coming to an end, having a few months left in 1945. In this period, the government only used the use of television’s limited resources in the terms of research and development for communicating the war. “They wanted to be able to use the technology for many different things such as guided missile systems using an ‘electronic eye’ that broadcasted images to a remote location where an operator was stationed (Television in the 1940s)”. The greatest lasting impact the war had on television was the development o...

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...many Americans received the chance to watch something amazing take place before their eyes that would leave a great impact on America forever. Whether it is the family sitcoms, Westerns, soap operas, or even daily news, we as a people received one of the greatest forms of technological communication and entertainment of all time, the television.

Works Cited

Allen, Steve. "The Year of Transition: 1959." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.
"Kennedy-Nixon Debates." Kennedy-Nixon Debates. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.
"Land of Television." Ushistory.org. Independence Hall Association, n.d. Web. 08 Apr. 2014.
"Rural America Turns On to TV in the 1940s." Rural America Turns On to TV in the 1940s. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.
"T.V. in the '40s: Development." T.V. in the '40s: Development. N.p., n.d. Web. 09 Apr. 2014.

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