Recalling the days when a new radio was a ‘must have’ for U.S. households

A year after my parents’ wedding on New Years’ Day, 1928, my mother saved an issue of the Clark County Courier, the weekly newspaper that served her hometown, Kahoka, in northeast Missouri. For months she had been driving about 20 miles from their farm to give piano lessons to several Kahoka residents, and the front page included a notice of a recital to be held the following Sunday at a local church.

In the paper, there were several auction ads placed by farm families who had given up as the October financial crash loomed. Benteco Store, a grocery, offered “fruit granulated sugar” in 10-pound cloth bags for 63 cents, and Kellogg’s Rice Krispies for 10 cents.  A large ad by Martin Bros, a Chevrolet dealer, touted the new Chevrolet Six Sedan, offered at $595. Other models, a Roadster, and a Phaeton, were priced at $525.

What caught my eye, however, were ads for radios. Limited by the fact that few stations were available, the radio had nevertheless caught everyone’s attention as “the latest thing.” Unlike the practical forms they later took, early radios were pieces of furniture.

A large ad by the Kahoka Jewelry and Music House featured the latest Crosley radios. The Model 32, touted as the “lowest cost of all,” was a cabinet model, resting on graceful legs, designed to “harmonize with any scheme of interior decoration.” Offered at the “lowest cost of all,” it was priced at $99.50, “without tubes.” The total cost of getting the radio up and running was not revealed in the ad.

Another advertiser, Martin Elec. & Supply Co., featured the “Majestic Electric Radio,” that had been chosen to entertain “Graff Zepp” passengers on their return trip to Germany. The store chose not to disclose the price, but urged readers to “let us give you a free home demonstration.” (The era of Graff Zeppelins ended with the crash of the Hindenburg, May 6, 1937 at Lakehurst, NJ.)

 In 1921, when radio was even more of a novelty, my aunt had written of a “road trip” she had taken with friends in northeast Arkansas. She reported they stopped at one town for the evening an attended a “radio concert,” but didn’t mention any details.

In 1926, on a Chautauqua tour in Ohio, my mother reported attending a “demonstration of a new radio outfit,” and heard a violin and voice broadcast originating from Pittsburgh. “Towards the end of the concert,” she wrote, “the air conditions became ‘static’ as they express it in ‘radio language,’ and we had a little trouble getting everything, but on the whole, everything was as plain as could be. How wonderful to be able to hear through the air like that.”

 In A 1929 letter, my mother congratulated my dad’s sister and her husband on getting their new radio. “In the absence of one of our own,” she wrote, “we have been enjoying several Sunday evening programs at a neighbor’s. I’m interested in the Chicago Symphony Orchestra programs sponsored by Standard Oil.”

 My parents would later acquire a battery-powered Atwater-Kent radio, a few years before their farmhouse was wired for electricity in the early 1940s. My mother would eventually get her “classical music fix” by listening to Public Radio on WOI-FM from Iowa City, Iowa.

Ken Weyand is the original owner/publisher of Discover Vintage America,  founded in July 1973 under the name of Discover North.

Ken Weyand can be contacted at kweyand1@kc.rr.com Ken is self-publishing a series of non-fiction E-books. Go to www.smashwords.com and enter Ken Weyand in the search box.