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SEPTEMBER 1955          5

Netherlands), Upsala (Sweden), Oslo (Norway), St. Andrews (Scotland), Dublin (Ireland), and from Yale, Georgetown, the College of Jewish Studies (Chicago) and others in the United States. He is an honorary member of the national academies of Denmark, Flanders, Ireland, France, the German Archaeological Institute, the British Society for Old Testament Study, and the Asiatic Society of France. He has served as past and present officer of many American and European learned organizations, and of the International Congress of Orientalists.

William Foxwell Albright was married on August 31, 1921, to Dr. Ruth Norton. They have four sons, Paul Norton, Hugh Norton, Stephen Foxwell and David Foxwell. Albright is a Methodist.

References
Directory of American Scholars (1951)
Finkelstein, L. ed. American Spiritual Autobiographies (1948)
International Who's Who, 1954
Who's Who in America, 1954-1955
World Biography (1954)

ALEXANDERSON, ERNST F(REDRIK) W(ERNER) Jan. 25, 1878-  Engineer; inventor

Address: b. General Electric Co., Schenectady 25, N.Y.; h. 1132 Adams Rd., Schenectady, N.Y.

One of the most prolific geniuses of the electrical is Dr. Ernst F. W. Alexanderson who, in five decades, has been granted over 320 patents. World-wide fame came to him as a young man in 1906 when he invented the high-frequency alternator which revolutionized wireless telegraphy and telephony. His name must be linked with those of Guglielmo Marconi, Lee De Forest, and Edwin H. Armstrong for his contributions to the science of radio broadcasting. Dr. Alexanderson was acclaimed again in 1927 when he made possible the first home reception of television. In 1955 he received his 321st patent for his invention of a color television receiver for use with the Radio Corporation of America's system of color broadcasting.

During his forty-four years of active service as an engineer for the General Electric Company, he produced numerous inventions in such fields as railway, electrification, motors and power transmissions, telephone relays and electric ship propulsion, in addition to his pioneer work in radio and television. He was chief engineer of RCA from 1919 until 1924, while at the same time carrying on his work for General Electric. Dr. Alexanderson today serves as an engineering consultant to both G.E. and RCA.

Ernst Fredrik Werner Alexanderson was born in Upsala, Sweden on January 25, 1878, the son of Professor Aron M. and Amelie (von Heidenstam) Alexanderson. His ancestors include teachers, soldiers, poets, and lawyers. His father taught at the University of Upsala and later held the chair of classical languages at the University of Lund, where

[[image - black & white photograph of Ernst F. W. Alexanderson]]
[[photo credit]] General Electric Co. [[/photo credit]]
[[caption]] ERNST F. W. ALEXANDERSON [[/caption]]

Ernst studied from 1896 to 1897, after graduating from the Lund High School. Because of an evident aptitude for mechanics, young Alexanderson was sent to the Royal Institute of Technology at Stockholm in 1897 and was graduated as a mechanical and electrical engineer in 1900. He attended the Royal Technical Institute in Berlin, Germany for a year of postgraduate work and studied under Professor Adolf K. H. Slaby, co-creator of the once-important Slaby-Arco system of radio communication.

While in Berlin, Alexanderson read a book entitled Theory and Calculation of Alternating Current Phenomena (1897) by Charles Steinmetz, the noted inventor and engineer of the General Electric Company, and was so impressed that he decided to go to America, where such men as Steinmetz and Thomas Alva Edison were at work. He landed in New York City in 1901. After meeting Edison, he went to visit Steinmetz and a close friendship sprang up between them.

At that time, Alexanderson was working for the C. & C. Electrical Company in New Jersey as a draftsman, but in February 1902 he was hired by G.E. to do the same work, on the recommendation of Steinmetz. The next year he took the G.E. test engineering course, and in 1904 he was appointed a member of the company's engineering staff, designing generators under the direction of Steinmetz.

When Alexanderson first arrived in America, radio was limited in use because of the weak transmitters then available. In 1904 Reginald A. Fessenden, a pioneer radio experimenter, asked G.E. to build for him an alternator capable of producing alternate current of high frequency. Alexanderson was assigned to the task and after constructing several models, he devised a practical alternator of the desired frequency which was installed in Fessenden's laboratory at Brant Rock, Massachusetts. From