born Jan. 29, 1901, Brooklyn, N.Y., N.Y., U.S.
died Nov. 15, 1965, New York City
U.S. engineer.
He became interested in television in 1928, as chief engineer at the De Forest Radio Co., and concluded that television required a purely electronic system to work. In 1931 he set up what would become Allen B. Du Mont Laboratories, where he improved the cathode-ray tube and developed the modern oscilloscope. In 1937 he began manufacturing the first commercial television receivers. After World War II he marketed the first widely available TV receivers and set up one of the first TV broadcasting networks. He served with the National Television System Committee formulating broadcasting standards and worked with the Federal Communications Commission in allocating frequencies for TV channels.