All Press Releases Back
Oct 11, 2018
Dolby Laboratories Founder Honored for Innovation at the Gateway to American Culture and Future Entertainment Exhibition at Smithsonian
The Ray Dolby Gateway to American Culture Opens Oct. 19 at the National Museum of American History WASHINGTON, Oct. 11, 2018 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Visitors to the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History will explore American history through culture, entertainment and the arts beginning Oct. 19 in the Ray Dolby Gateway to Culture which will focus on music and sound with a preview of the themes and objects in a 2020 major exhibition. Entertaining America, in the Ray and Dagmar Dolby Hall of American Culture.
The Ray Dolby Gateway to Culture exhibit opens to the public at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C. on October 19, 2018.
The Ray Dolby Gateway to Culture brings visitors into a series of installations centered on sound, stage, stadium and screen, including the Ruby Slippers, which return to view after an 18-month conservation. The first display is America's Listening which focuses on the public's experience with recorded sound, including five of the innovations that kept them listening: Thomas Edison's phonograph, Alexander Graham Bell's graphophone, Emile Berliner's gramophone, Ray Dolby's noise reduction system, and Apple's iPod. This leads to the Culture Wing's landmark object - a 14-foot stained-glass window from one of four windows that graced the tower of the Victor Company's headquarters in Camden, New Jersey. It features what became the RCA company's iconic trademark image of a dog Nipper listening to his master's recorded voice.
In the center of the installations on the museum's culture floor will be the Nicholas F. and Eugenia Taubman Hall of Music with side-lobby displays highlighting the museum's jazz and classical instrument collections. Outside the music hall, will be two cases highlighting new entertainment-related additions to the arts and culture collections. A 1923 Yankee Stadium ticket booth will highlight baseball as one of the country's favorite pastimes. Two screens will explore America through the virtual landscapes depicted in popular video games and this space will feature a seating area with charging stations. A vivid mural commissioned by the museum from the Washington, D.C. studio of No Kings Collective brings creativity, color and patterns to illustrate the concept of American culture.
The Ruby Slippers will be in a separate gallery within a state-of-the-art display case. The October opening will feature two additional artifacts related to the popular 1939 film, The Wizard of Oz.
Entertainment provides a lens through which our visitors can better understand history and we are grateful to Dolby for making this gift and enabling us to share these popular artifacts with millions of people, said Sue Fruchter Interim Director, National Museum of American History. The power of culture will help our audiences discover a range of new and unexpected ways by which we can all engage in, improve and expand the promise of our democracy.
Ray's story is the epitome of the American Dream, said Dagmar Dolby, wife of Dolby Laboratories founder Ray Dolby. After returning from military service he followed with college and began on a path to make entertainment look and sound more lifelike. His boundless curiosity made him a tremendously successful inventor and he would be thrilled to have some of his work showcased with Bell, Edison, Berliner, and Jobs.
Ray set the tone for multigenerational innovation in music, television, and film that has continued for more than five decades, said Andy Sherman, EVP and General Counsel at Dolby Laboratories. His legacy lives on through the immersive entertainment experiences that Dolby creates for the eyes and ears throughout the world and the inventor's DNA that remains at the core of everything we do.
Entertaining America, scheduled to open in late 2020, is a major exhibition that will explore American history through the longstanding power of entertainment and will examine the deep and enduring influence of our nations entertainment. The nearly 7,000-square-foot exhibition will examine how entertainment brings Americans together, shapes us and provides a forum for important national conversations about politics, society, culture and what it means to be an American. The exhibition will focus on the culture makers who broke barriers, changed our American sound and transformed sports, movies, theater, television-and the national audience. In an immersive introductory experience, the simply stated key message, Americans Love Entertainment, will be reinforced with exciting media elements to show why entertainment matters.
The Ray Dolby Gateway to Culture leading to the newly named Ray and Dagmar Dolby Hall of American Culture where the Entertaining America exhibition will be located was made possible in part by a $5 million contribution from the Dolby family. Renovations to the 270 seat Warner Bros. Theater, at the main entrance of the Smithsonian's National Museum of American History, is scheduled to be completed in 2020 utilizing in-kind contributions from Dolby Laboratories to create a modern cinema to ensure a truly immersive audio and visual experience.
About Dolby Laboratories
Dolby Laboratories (NYSE: DLB) is based in San Francisco with offices in over 20 countries around the globe. Dolby transforms the science of sight and sound into spectacular experiences. Through innovative research and engineering, we create breakthrough experiences for billions of people worldwide through a collaborative ecosystem spanning artists, businesses, and consumers. The experiences people have - in Dolby Vision, Dolby Atmos, Dolby Cinema, Dolby Voice, an
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
04/07/2026
April 7 2026, 19:00 (PDT) Detective Conan: Fallen Angel of the Highway Opens in...
01/06/2026
January 6 2026, 05:30 (PST) Dolby Sets the New Standard for Premium Entertainment at CES 2026
Throughout the week, Dolby brings to life the latest innovatio...
13/05/2026
New Adobe Premiere Color Grading Mode Accelerated on NVIDIA GPUs
Joel Pennington May 13, 2026
0 Comments
New NVIDIA RTX-accelerated features streamlin...
13/05/2026
Grass Valley announced that dB Broadcast has delivered new IP-based outside broadcast (OB) trucks for Cloudbass, featuring Grass Valley LDX 100 Series cameras a...
13/05/2026
Ikegami will exhibit the latest additions to its wide range of broadcast production cameras, control units, viewfinders and monitors on stand 5D3-1 at Broadcast...
13/05/2026
FISE, working with the founding members of the XR Sports Alliance (XRSA), Accedo, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and HBS, have collaborated to develop an immersive...
13/05/2026
Canon Unveils New EOS R6 V Full-Frame EOS Camera and RF20-50mm F4 L IS USM PZ Bu...
13/05/2026
Boston Conservatory at Berklee Honors Beth Morrison and Moses Pendleton at Comme...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
13/05/2026
Creative software developer Foundry today announced the latest developments on Nuke Stage. A purpose-built application for end-to-end virtual production and in-...
13/05/2026
A definitive portrait of one of Ireland's most influential musicians
New TV documentary airs Monday 18 May on RT One and RT Player at 9.35pm
Watch the...
13/05/2026
Agentic AI is changing the way users get work done. Following the success of OpenClaw, the community is embracing new open source agentic frameworks. The latest...
13/05/2026
Reinforcement-learning agents - AI systems that learn by trial and error - can c...
12/05/2026
Beyond the Hype: A Strategic Post-Hoc Analysis of NAB 2026 If NAB Show 2026 had an underlying theme, it was a quiet, industry-wide pivot from the high-energy sp...
12/05/2026
Guntermann and Drunck (G&D), a Panoptec Technologies Group company, and CT Square, led by Chandresh Shah, have announced a joint venture to distribute G&D and V...
12/05/2026
With 30 days until the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, Telemundo, the exclusive Spanish-language home of the tournament in the United States, has announced th...
12/05/2026
The NHL has announced the return of Stanley Pup for its third consecutive year, a 90-minute special featuring adoptable rescue dogs competing on a miniature rin...
12/05/2026
NBCUniversal presented its 2026 Upfront to advertisers at Radio City Music Hall, detailing upcoming programming across NBC, Peacock, Bravo, and Versant properti...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced funding for the Fandom and Social Connection Initiative at Harvard Kennedy School's Shorenstein Center on Media, Politics, and Publ...
12/05/2026
TNDV and Live Media, both divisions of Live Media Group, supported live broadcast coverage around NCAA Final Four weekend in Indianapolis, including the March M...
12/05/2026
The European Football Alliance (EFA) has announced a content distribution agreement with Fubo Sports Network, the free ad-supported streaming TV (FAST) channel ...
12/05/2026
For the first time, Spanish-speaking fans in the U.S. will have two separate tel...
12/05/2026
CP Communications led a comprehensive spectrum management initiative on behalf of Churchill Downs during Kentucky Derby week, coordinating RF assets across the ...
12/05/2026
LiveU has announced a strategic partnership with DRONERESPONDERS, a 501(c)3 non-...
12/05/2026
Open Broadcast Systems has announced that BMC TV, a specialist in IP transport of broadcast content, has selected the Open Broadcast Systems 5G Flyaway solution...
12/05/2026
NEP Europe, part of NEP Group, has announced it will deliver broadcast solutions...
12/05/2026
Grass Valley has announced continued collaboration with Ravensbourne University ...
12/05/2026
Stats Perform has announced the launch of Opta Pulse, an AI-assisted video creation and distribution platform for leagues, rights holders, and broadcasters. The...
12/05/2026
FOX Sports has announced a collaboration with Sesame Workshop to integrate Sesame Street characters into FOX Sports' FIFA World Cup 2026 programming. Conten...
12/05/2026
To date, NHL Productions has produced 19 broadcasts with commentary in American Sign Language
NHL in ASL (American Sign Language) may be just one show, but the...
12/05/2026
Google's Brian Albert: creators, athletes, highlights, nostalgia, second-scr...
12/05/2026
A still from Past Lives by Celine Song, an official selection of the Premieres program at the 2023 Sundance Film Festival. (Courtesy of Sundance Institute | p...
12/05/2026
Spotify is where fans and artists come together, turning discovery into somethin...
12/05/2026
Features patented Marco-MMC clocking technology
Black Lion Audio's latest release combines the company's expertise in clocking with their renowned p...
12/05/2026
New Track Panel, sequencer upgrades & more
Following their recent public beta release, Reason Studios have announced the full release of Reason 14. With the...
12/05/2026
One month to go! SBS reveals expansive FIFA World Cup 2026 lineup beyond the pi...
12/05/2026
Rohde & Schwarz presents its advanced solutions for power electronics testing at...
12/05/2026
aconnic AG (ISIN: DE000A0LBKW6), Munich, has developed a modified fund raising p...
12/05/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
12/05/2026
Tyrell Corporation, specialists in high-end live sports and entertainment broadcasts, was tasked with delivering compelling broadcast coverage of premier equest...
12/05/2026
Registration is now open for IBC2026 as the global media, entertainment and technology community prepares to converge on the RAI Amsterdam from 11 14 September ...
12/05/2026
Ross Video, a global leader in live video production technology, will present its latest innovations and integrated production workflows at BroadcastAsia 2026, ...
12/05/2026
500 selected leaders from around the world across start-ups, corporates, and venture capital. Over 50bn in assets under management among attending investors, a...
All Press Releases Back 
