Remember “don’t touch that dial,” and “stay tuned,” or “turn the channel”? If you remember any of those sayings, then you remember when televisions had dials with numbers used to select a channel. It was a time before remote controls when parent made children jump up to change the channel.
Admiral Corporation was founded in 1934 by Ross Siragusa, an Italian immigrant who was mesmerized by the inventions of Guglielmo Marconi (radio) and Nihkola Tesla (TV). Admiral’s beginnings were humble but built on Siragusa’s passion to bring these products into the homes of every American family.
The Great Depression of the 1930s was his window to success. Having returned from the 1933 World’s Fair where he saw the prototype for the television, he embarked on establishing a company that would manufacture portable radios that were affordable while keeping his eyes on the new technology. His dream was seeing success and his factories were growing in the radio trade which allowed them to take on some profitable government contracts during WWII.
In 1948, Admiral added TV’s to their product offering and in just a year and a half of entering the category Admiral was producing 15,000 sets a day at multiple factories across the country and claimed a quarter share of the entire industries production. Admiral was one of the first companies to produce color TV’s.
Success in television sales enabled the company to branch out into major appliances such as refrigerators by the 1950s. In the mid 1950s they began to expand into foreign markets and acquired the Marconi factory in England to help in the expansion. General Electric and Admiral have the distinction of being the only American brands to establish themselves in both home appliances and consumer electronics.
Below are some fabulous vintage adverts of Admiral televisions during the 1950s:
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