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Citation bot (talk | contribs) Altered template type. Add: work, newspaper, date, authors 1-1. Removed parameters. Some additions/deletions were parameter name changes. | Use this bot. Report bugs. | Suggested by Abductive | [[Category:American audio engineers] | #UCB_Category 400/856 |
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* {{marriage|Sylvia Stern|1945|1970|end=divorced}}<ref>{{cite web|title=SIDNEY HARMAN|date=24 October 2014 |url=http://anbhf.org/laureates/sidney-harman/|accessdate=7 May 2018}}</ref>
* {{marriage|[[Jane Harman]]{{smaller|<ref name="jj"/>}}|1980||reason=}}
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'''Sidney Mortimer Harman''' (August 4, 1918 – April 12, 2011) was a Canadian-born American [[polymath]] whose varied intellectual interests enabled him to flourish during a sixty-year career as an engineer, businessman, manager and philanthropist active in electronics, education, government, industry, and publishing.
Harman made “high-fidelity sound [a] part of American life".<ref name="TheWeek">{{cite web|title=Sidney Harman, 1918–2011|url=https://theweek.com/articles/485380/sidney-harman-19182011|website=The Week|date=21 April 2011 |access-date=April 24, 2023}}</ref>
Harman's career highlights include: co-founder, CEO and Chairman Emeritus of Harman/Kardon, Inc. [later Harman International Industries], President of World Friends College, [[United States Deputy Secretary of Commerce|U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce]], Fellow of American Academy of Arts and Sciences, board member of the Aspen Institute for Humanistic Studies, [[Isaias W. Hellman]] Professor of [[Polymathy]] at [[University of Southern California]] executive board chairman of [[Business Executives for National Security]], member of the [[Council on Foreign Relations]] and CFO-owner of the Newsweek Daily Beast Co.
Harman was active in business until his death at 92 years old. He died one month after being diagnosed with acute myeloid leukemia.<ref name="jj">{{cite web|title=Sidney Harman, Newsweek chairman and entrepreneur, dies at 92|url=https://jewishjournal.com/community/91158/|website=Jewish Journal|date=13 April 2011 |access-date=April 24, 2023}}</ref>
==Early life and education==
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In the late 1930s, Kardon had often helped recording engineers and professional musicians modify available public address amplifiers and speakers to better reproduce radio programs and recorded music.<ref name="WorldRadio">{{cite web|title=Bernard Kardon|date= December 26, 2017|url=https://worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/Archive-Audio/60s/Audio-1962-May.pdf|access-date=April 26, 2023}}</ref>
Recognizing a nascent high-fidelity industry, Harman lobbied the Bogen company to develop improved audio systems for American consumers. Bogen wasn't interested so Harman left in 1953,<ref name="Independent">{{cite
===Harman/Kardon Inc.===
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[[File:Harman Kardon Festival D-1000 receiver.jpg|thumb|left|'''Harman Kardon Festival D-1000''' receiver, circa 1954]]In 1954 their first products were the 7 tube '''A-100''' AM - FM tuner featuring automatic frequency control, priced at $70.50 ({{Inflation|US|70.50|1954|fmt=eq}})<ref>{{cite news|title=Hi-Fi - the right note for Christmas|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/75118521|access-date=April 26, 2023 |work=Nevada State Journal|location=Reno, Nevada-|date=December 5, 1954}}</ref><ref>{{cite news |title=Hit of the Hi-Fi FAIR|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/869685232|access-date=April 26, 2023 |work=The Sunday Evening Star|location=Washington, DC-|date=March 14, 1954}}</ref> and the '''Festival D-1000''' receiver, the world's first integrated hi-fi receiver priced at $189.50 ({{Inflation|US|189.50|1954|fmt=eq}}). Advertised as having "all the critical electronic elements of a deluxe high-fidelity system on one compact, controlled chassis", the unit included a wide bandwidth FM radio tuner, a pre-amplifier and 20-watt amplifier with automatic loudness control all in a complete chassis.<ref>{{cite news|title=Three-In-One High Fidelity for Your Present Cabinet!|url=https://www.newspapers.com/image/101045652|access-date=May 1, 2023 |work=The Cincinnati Enquirer|location=Cincinnati, Ohio-|date=February 25, 1955}}</ref><ref name=bbbw/><ref>{{cite web|title=The Evolution of Home Audio Systems|url=https://www.complex.com/music/2015/09/the-evolution-of-home-audio-systems|website=Complex|access-date=April 24, 2023}}</ref><ref>{{cite web|title=Festival D-1000|url=https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/harman_festival_d_1000.html|website=Radiomuseum|access-date=April 24, 2023}}</ref>
The partners had created an advanced audio receiver that could be used to play radio programs and records at home with high audio fidelity by simply attaching speakers. Listeners were amazed. “We knocked the hell out of them; they were trembling with Shostakovich's Fifth” Harman said. “Nobody had heard anything like that in his living room”, Harman recalled.<ref>{{cite web|title=Sidney Harman, 1918–2011|url=https://theweek.com/articles/485380/sidney-harman-19182011|website=The Week|date=21 April 2011 |access-date=April 24, 2023}}</ref>
By 1956 Harmon/Kardon was worth $600,000 ({{Inflation|US|600,000|1956|fmt=eq}}). Kardon retired in 1957.
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===HARMAN International Industries===
Headquartering the renamed business in Stamford, Connecticut, Harman took the company public in 1986.<ref name="OAC">{{cite web|title=Finding aid for the Sidney Harman papers 5121|url=https://oac.cdlib.org/findaid/ark:/13030/c8bv7f99/dsc/|website=Online Archive of California|access-date=April 24, 2023}}</ref> The newly formed HARMAN International developed audio equipment aimed at the high-end consumer and professional markets. After acquiring United Technologies' wire division for $5 million, Harman built it into a $100 million division that supplied speakers to the automotive OEM market.<ref>{{cite
In 2002, Harman was awarded the [[Electronic Industries Alliance]] (EIA) Medal of Honor for "outstanding contributions to the advancement of the electronics industry". The EIA said Harman's "unwavering commitment to excellence, innovation, and human development, both in the electronics industry and the greater community" and his "commitment to progressive management at every level, his promotion of the arts as integral in business, and his remarkable vision in anticipating, interpreting, and giving life to the opportunities in digital technology" were the reasons for the
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In 1970 a labor problems surfaced at a Harman automotive parts plant in Bolivar, Tennessee. Harman said "Our plant was aging and old-fashioned. If Charles Dickens had visited us in Bolivar, he would have felt he had never left the grimier parts of London.... I realized then that the way I ran the plant in Bolivar and at other Harman factories was in contradiction to everything I was doing at Friends World College [where Harman at the time was also serving as president]". Harman began changing the way the factory was managed.<ref name="FORBES">{{cite web|url=https://www.forbes.com/2004/01/24/0124bookreview.html?sh=9b5d36f1906b|title=Better Than Business School|website=www.forbes.com|access-date=April 24, 2023}}</ref>
In 1972 Harman met [[Irving Bluestone]], vice president of the [[United Automobile Workers]] union while testifying before a United States Senate subcommittee about factory worker anger and frustration. Harman said he felt the main problem was corporate America treating employees like replaceable pieces of machinery. Bluestone asked Harman "Are you for real?" when they were introduced. Bluestone decided to work with Harman to address worker dissension at the Bolivar plant.<ref name="Bolivar">{{cite
Supported by the [[Ford Foundation]], the [[Alfred P. Sloan Foundation]] and the National Commission on Productivity and Work Quality, the project was initially a success. Managers had to set a quota of one group visit per week to limit distractions due to so many corporate and labor union leaders wanting to visit the plant.<ref name="Bolivar"/>
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===Academy for Polymathic Study===
Harman was recognized as a [[polymath]]. He was founder and first chairman of the Academy for Polymathic Study at USC. He also served as the inaugural Isaias W. Hellman Professor of Polymathy in the academy.<ref>{{Cite web | url=https://www.caltech.edu/about/news/trustee-sidney-harman-92-1910 | title=Trustee Sidney Harman, 92| date=14 April 2011}}</ref><ref name="obit">Shapiro, Taylor (2011). ''[https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/obituaries/arts-patron-industrialist-sidney-harman-dies-at-92/2011/04/13/AFj2Y1YD_story_1.html Arts Patron, Industrialist Sidney Harman Dies At 92]'' ''The Washington Post''. April 13, 2011.</ref> The academy encourages critical and integrative thinking, the study of history's great polymaths, and intellectual investigation across the boundaries of traditional academic specialties. In 2012 the Harman Family Foundation's gave $10 million to endow the center now named the Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Study.<ref name="obit"/>
==Publisher==
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• 2007 - Entrepreneur of the Year - USC Marshall's Lloyd Greif Center for Entrepreneurial Studies<ref name="USC awards">{{cite web|title=Harman Named Widney Business Professor|url=https://news.usc.edu/16706/Harman-Named-Widney-Business-Professor|website=USC News|access-date=April 24, 2023}}</ref>
• 2007 - Washingtonian of the Year<ref>{{cite web|title=Washingtonians of the Year 2007: Sidney Harman|url=https://www.washingtonian.com/2008/01/01/washingtonians-of-the-year-2007-sidney-harman/|website=Washingtonian|date=January 2008 |access-date=April 24, 2023}}</ref>
• 2008 - First Judge Widney Professor of Business at University of Southern California.<ref name="USC awards"/>
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