RCA Laboratories Reshape Princeton

By the 1940s, Princeton was beginning to attract large technical research corporations—the Radio Corporation of America (RCA) being chief among them. These laboratories brought in young scientists and engineers, freshly minted with professional degrees and training that made them eligible for jobs in new and expanding industries. Many of these scientists happened to be Jewish, and the local Jewish community grew as a result.

In 1942, RCA concentrated its research and development activities in a new facility on 260 acres near Princeton University.This site was later named the David Sarnoff Research Center in honor of the RCA president –  himself, an immigrant from a small Jewish village in Russia.

RCA was one of several companies that created brand-new housing developments to attract employees to move to Princeton. These developments, such as Princeton’s Littlebrook neighborhood, often boasted science-inspired street names: Random Road was derived from the “Random Processes in Communications Networks” being researched at the time by Sarnoff employees. They also lacked the restrictive covenants excluding Jews and African-Americans that appear in town property deeds from the 1920s.

RCA scientists and their families were sometimes active in the Jewish community, but more often served the larger community, participating in the general civic life of Princeton, on school and town boards.