Man Against Various Gods

The late Major Edwin Howard Armstrong, pioneer in the development of Hi-fi broadcasting and inventor of the “feedback” amplifying circuit upon which modern radio reception rests, was a man against the gods. His life, as set forth by Lawrence Lessing in an eloquent and impassioned biography called Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong (Lippincott, $5.00), is a Greek tragedy in its overtones—though Mr. Lessing, an environmentalist in most of his judgments, never quite sees that his hero was up against something far more elemental than “society.”

In his sixty-fourth year Armstrong, tired out from a lifetime of complex invention, and never-ending patent litigation, dressed himself neatly in hat, overcoat, scarf and gloves and walked out of a thirteenth-story window in New York City to his death. Mr. Lessing, though he has occasional things to say about “furies” and “demons” and rejection-by-the-father, tends to place the blame for the suicide on the “corporations.” “They”—Mr. Lessing thinks of them in quotation marks—”they” had denied Armstrong justice by refusing to recognize his patent priorities and denying him royalties. The Radio Corporation of America in particular had sinned by refusing to cooperate with Armstrong in giving frequency modulation, with its high fidelity radio sound reception, commercial priority over television.

JC

About the Author

John Chamberlain

John Chamberlain (1903–1995) was an American writer.

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The late Major Edwin Howard Armstrong, pioneer in the development of Hi-fi broadcasting and inventor of the “feedback” amplifying circuit upon which modern radio reception rests, was a man against the gods. His life, as set forth by Lawrence Lessing in an eloquent and impassioned biography called Man of High Fidelity: Edwin Howard Armstrong (Lippincott, $5.00), is a Greek tragedy in its overtones—though Mr. Lessing, an environmentalist in most of his judgments, never quite sees that his hero was up against something far more elemental than “society.”

In his sixty-fourth year Armstrong, tired out from a lifetime of complex invention, and never-ending patent litigation, dressed himself neatly in hat, overcoat, scarf and gloves and walked out of a thirteenth-story window in New York City to his death. Mr. Lessing, though he has occasional things to say about “furies” and “demons” and rejection-by-the-father, tends to place the blame for the suicide on the “corporations.” “They”—Mr. Lessing thinks of them in quotation marks—”they” had denied Armstrong justice by refusing to recognize his patent priorities and denying him royalties. The Radio Corporation of America in particular had sinned by refusing to cooperate with Armstrong in giving frequency modulation, with its high fidelity radio sound reception, commercial priority over television.