Wizards
of Schenectady,The Rice Legacy
A family of pioneers changes our world
Watch the first
modern documentary on the beginnings and growth of General Electric
through the life of early founding father E.W.
Rice Jr. and his family.
E.W. helped develop
electric arc light systems with legend
Elihu Thomson. Together they went
on to make other monumental moves such as the hiring of C.P.
Steinmetz, the founding of the GE
Research Lab, dealing with the first labor unions, and founding
RCA. Martin Rice was a founder of modern corporate communications and
public relations at GE. Chester W. Rice, E.W.'s
son, led the world into a new age of scientific engineering with his
development of the hydrogen filled condenser and the world's first
audio amplifiers and speakers.
This documentary
was carefully crafted over a year and a half by the Edison Tech Center.
It uses information gathered from historic books, documents, and oral
histories. Interviews and photos were gathered from archives of the
Rice Family, the Schenectady Museum, the Schenectady County Historical
Society, and National Archives. It features a voice-over by renown storyteller
Joe Doolittle. Video: 2 episodes, 1 hour total