Tag: David Sarnoff

Thomas Edison? David Sarnoff? Apocryphal?

Dear Quote Investigator: I saw the following quotation on the website of a medical school with a strong history of innovation:

There’s a way to do it better — find it.

The words were attributed to the inventor and research laboratory pioneer Thomas A. Edison. I also saw an advertisement by a power company claiming this was “Edison’s motto”. However, I have not found it in Edison’s writings. Is this quotation genuine?

Quote Investigator: Thomas Edison died in 1931, and currently the earliest evidence of this saying located by QI appeared in September 1957 when the New York Times reported on a newly launched advertising campaign using the expression:^[1] 1957 September 4, New York Times, Advertising: Promoting a Negative Quality by Carl Spielvogel, Quote Page 46, Column 6,New York. (ProQuest)

The McGraw-Edison Company, Inc., electrical products’ manufacturer, has begun its first series of corporate ads as a national advertiser. Insertions will appear this month in Time, U. S. News and World Report, and Newsweek.

Advertisements are built around a statement by Thomas A. Edison, who challenged his staff: “There’s a way to do it better . . . find it.” The J. Walter Thompson Company is the agency.

A couple weeks later a newspaper in Greensboro, North Carolina reported on the adage and credited Edison; however, the journalist was probably simply repeating information derived from the advertising campaign:^[2] 1957 September 24, Greensboro Record, Trade Winds: Better Selling Need Emphasized by Lou Schneider, Quote Page B3, Column 2, Greensboro, North Carolina. (GenealogyBank)

Thomas A. Edison challenged his staff with this slogan: “There’s a way to do it better . . . find it.” With people earning more money than ever, there’s no reason for the lag in consumption. Manufacturers have only themselves to blame for not doing better selling.

In December 1957 a full-page advertisement in Newsweek for McGraw-Edison Company featured the saying together with the Edison ascription as a headline in bold letters:^[3] 1957 December 23, Newsweek, Volume 50, (Advertisement for McGraw-Edison Company), Quote Page 28, Newsweek, Inc., New York. (Verified on microfilm)

“There’s a way to do it better . . . find it!”
Thomas A. Edison

In 1959 a professor giving a lecture sponsored by the collegiate honor society of Phi Kappa Phi mentioned the saying:^[4]1959 Winter, Phi Kappa Phi Journal, “Research or ?” by Ralph E. Dunbar, Start Page 24, Quote Page 29, (The lecture presented at the Second Annual Faculty Lectureship of the North Dakota … Continue reading

But even such a practical man as Thomas Edison once stated that, “There’s a way to do it better . . . find it.” Likewise, we should realize that even our practically minded men require a tremendous backlog of basic and fundamental data and information.

In June 1961 a bronze bust of Thomas Edison was installed in an open-air colonnade called the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at the Bronx campus of New York University. As reported in the New York Times, the chairman of the Radio Corporation of America, David Sarnoff, spoke at a ceremony and described where he encountered the motto:^[5] 1961 June 5, New York Times, Edison Bust Enters Hall of Fame As Sarnoff Delivers a Eulogy, Quote Page 34, Column 7 and 8, New York. (ProQuest)

Mr. Sarnoff said he had been impressed by a sign that Edison had hung on the wall of his laboratory. It said, “There’s a way to do it better—find it.”

Mr. Sarnoff is a trustee of the Thomas Alva Edison Foundation, which sponsored the ceremony.

Here are additional selected citations in chronological order.

Continue reading There’s a Way To Do It Better—Find It