Spoiler : Barnouw, Erik Born in The Hague, Netherlands 6/23/1908; died 7/19/2001 at his home in Fair Haven, Vermont. Barnouw immigrated to the United States in 1919, grew up in New York, then attended Princeton University where he earned acclaim from his peers as a playwright and lyricist.

Spoiler : Barnouw began his radio career in 1929 when he took a job with an advertising agency supervising radio programs which were sponsored by the agencie's clients. Barnouw quit broadcasting for awhile to teach a course on radio at Columbia University, and his students included novelist Pearl Buck who signed up for a radio writing course under an alias. By 1940 Barnouw was back in broadcasting, working as a script supervisor for NBC

Spoiler : Producer of The Camel Quarter-Hour on CBS-Radio (1931-1932). Writer for The Pursuit Of Happiness on CBS-Radio (1939-1940); Theatre Guild On The Air for CBS-Radio (1943-?). He received as 1944 Peabody Award for producing Words At War on NBC-Radio. Co-producer of Horizons (1951-1952) and Seminar (1952-1953) both for ABC-TV.

Spoiler : After writing a book on India's cinema, Oxford University Press commissioned Barnouw to write his authoritative trilogy of books on the history of United States broadcasting (1966-1970). The first, "A Tower In Babel" traced radio from it's infancy until 1933. The second book, "The Golden Web" traced radio from 1933 until 1958. The third book, "The Image Empire" covered the rise of television and it's impact on American culture. In 1978, Barnouw wrote "The Sponsor: Notes On A Modern Potentate," in which he examined the influence of advertisers. In 1981 he wrote "The Magician and the Cinema," which drew a link between the demise of the great 19th Century magicians and the rise of another kind of optical illusion: film. In 1996 he published, "Media Marathon: A 20th-Century Memoir," which consisted of a series of character sketches of interesting people Barnouw had encountered during his over half a century of his involvement in broadcasting.

Spoiler : He received as 1971 George Polk Award for the History of Broadcasting in the United States triology. In 1983, the Organization of American Historians named an award in his honor to recognize outstanding reporting or programming on network or cable televsion documentary film. Barnouw founded the film, radio and television department at Columbia University, once chaired the broadcast division of the Library of Congress.