According to observers in the 1920s What were the primary advantages and disadvantages of commercial radio broadcasting? Was radio ‘a blessing or a curse’? Why? What could radio offer indiv

BECOMING MODERN: AMERICA IN THE 1920S

PRIMARY SOURCE COLLECTION

*

Radio—is it “a blessing or a curse?” It is “virtually useless,” “just another disintegrating toy.” It is “a Tremendous Contribution,” “the only means of instantaneous communication yet devised by man.” Radio “will elect the next president”; its listeners comprise “an organization that in days to come will be the most powerful in the world.” However one judged radio as it grew from a “helpless youngster” into a “husky adolescence” in the 1920s, one thing was clear—“There it is, up in the air, absolutely free, waiting for you to pull it down with the aid of electricity.” The vast array of opinion on radio’s value and future is apparent in this excerpted commentary from the decade.

Radio broadcasting is spectacular and amusing but

virtually useless. It is difficult to make out a convincing case

for the value of listening to the material now served out by

the American broadcasters. Even if the quality of this

material be improved, as it undoubtedly will be, one must still question whether the home

amusement thus so easily provided will sufficiently raise the level of public culture to be worth

what it costs in time and money and the diversion of human effort. It is quite possible to argue,

indeed, that the very ease with which information or what-not reaches one by radio makes it just so

much the less valuable. In educational matters, as in commerce, men usually value things by what

they cost. Culture painlessly acquired is likely to be lost as painlessly—and as promptly.

Is the whole radio excitement to result, then, in nothing but a further debauching [morally

corrupting] of the American mind in the direction of still lazier cravings for sensationalism? I

believe not. There are at least two directions, quite different ones, in which radio has already

proved its utility and its right to

survive. One of these is its practical

service as a means of communica-

tion. The other is its effect, contin-

ually growing more evident, in

stimulating the revival of that

exceedingly useful and desirable

creature, the amateur scientist.

* National Humanities Center, AMERICA IN CLASS

® , 2012: americainclass.org/. Punctuation modernized for clarity. Articles in The United American, The Talking Machine World,

and Moving Picture Age in online collection Prosperity and Thrift: The Coolidge Era and the Consumer Economy, 1921-1929 (Library of Congress). Search in process for copyright holder of Forum content. Photograph above: “The shut-in’s Sunday service,” March 28, 1923, Clark Music Co.; courtesy of the Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division. Complete image credits at americainclass.org/ sources/becomingmodern/imagecredits.htm.

O N T E M P O R A R Y

O M M E N T A RY HE WENTIES T T C IN

E. E. Free [science editor]

“Radio’s Real Uses” The Forum, March 1926

— RADIO —

“There can be no appeal to passion over the radio,” says Governor

[Al] Smith of New York. “You’ve got to talk facts.” Which perma-

nently eliminates the radio from all national political campaigns.

 If it is really true that there can be no appeal to passion over the

radio, then the movies won’t have to fear this competition after all.

“Life Lines,” humor column, Life, 23 April 1925

National Humanities Center  The Twenties in Contemporary Commentary: Radio 2

Literary editor of the Chicago Daily News, Hansen wrote his piece soon after delivering his first radio broadcast.

. . . I had not, up to that time, thought of it [radio]

as a sort of mental hypodermic [injection]. I had, as a

matter of fact, connected it principally with the

national defense, and I remember that originally I

had some vague notion about the service the radio

would render in times of war, in the matter of

expediting [sending] messages, detecting spies, etc.

Of course I knew that it was a Tremendous Contri-

bution—to what or to whom I was not exactly sure,

but I had heard it styled so by ministers in the pulpit,

and I was sure that in time it would be included in

school histories under the chapter entitled Benefits of

Inventions and Discoveries, which explained how

much the cotton gin, the locomotive, the telephone,

and the motion picture had done for civilization.

By actual contact, however, both as a listener

and as a broadcaster, I learned that the radio was

associated with that other form of service which is a

sort of national rallying cry in America, “Service,”

with a capital S, that intangible something, which

the merchant professes to confer upon you in

addition to the goods for which you pay; . . .

. . . Its programs were free. You could tune in

anywhere without even giving a tithe to the

government. As one station sang nightly:

Just set your dial

And stay a while

With W-X-Y-Z.

There it is, up in the air, absolutely free, waiting

for you to pull it down with the aid of electricity.

Opera and symphonic music, jazz, twenty minutes

of good reading, how to cook by Aunty Jane, tales

for the kiddies and prayers set to music, even “Now

I lay me down to sleep”; sermons and exhortations

not to drink, gamble, and blaspheme, with music by

the white-robed choir; advice on how to spread your

income by investment brokers; advice on how to

make your shoes last longer by shoe salesmen; talks

by the mayor on civic duty, on “Your Boy” by the

master of the Boy Scouts; on the right sort of boys

by the head of the Y.M.C.A., and the right sort of

girls by the head of the Y.W.C.A.; barn dances, recitals of music schools, whole acts of plays, speeches, speeches, speeches.

Harry Hansen “Some Meditations on the Radio” The Nation, March 25, 1925

RADIO FEATURES

Programme for Today at Newark, Pittsburgh and Phila Stations

The Philadelphia Inquirer, October 12, 1922

STATION WJZ, NEWARK [NJ] 7 to 7:30 P.M.—“Jack Rabbit Stories,” by David Cory.

8:30 P.M.—Closing prices on stocks, bonds, grain, coffee, and sugar.

8:36 P.M.—“Economizing Space with the Proper Wardrobe and Closets for Men’s Clothes,” by Vanity Fair.

8:40 P.M.—Concert by the Schubert Quartette.

9:30 P.M.—“The Merchant of Venice,” a dramatic reading by Mona Morgan.

9:55 P.M.—Arlington Time Signals: Official Weather Forecast.

STATION KDKA, PITTSBURGH 7 P.M.—Scientific American weekly programme. United

States Public Health semi-weekly bulletin.

8 P.M.—Bedtime Story for the Kiddies.

8:30 P.M.—Hints on Modern and Practical Home Furnish- ing, prepared by Miss Harriet Webster. An address of interest to the farmer.

9 P.M.— Italian Night. Mlle. Franke, soprano; Nazarino La Marca, tenor; Foch de Leo, pianist; Frank Rubbe, violin, Americo Roncale, violin; Alfredo Armocida, cello; Joseph di Giovanni, flute; August di Giovanni, mandolin; Paul Durbano, mandolin.

This will be a programme of operatic arias and Neapolitan serenades, including popular Italian songs.

STATION WIP, PHILADELPHIA 1 P.M.—Noon prices New York and Philadelphia Stock

Exchanges.

1:30 P.M.—Musical programme.

2:30 P.M.—Recital by Charles A. Rittenhouse, baritone; Paul Meyer, violinist; Emil Folgmen, violon- cellist. [Program follows.]

7 P.M.—Weather report.

7:10 P.M.—Uncle Wip’s bedtime stories and Roll Call.

STATION WDAR, PHILADELPHIA 10:30 A.M. to 12 M.—Latest music and popular songs.

STATION WFI, PHILADELPHIA 1:16 P.M.—Late news items.

3:30 to 4:30 P.M.—Concert by the Strawbridge & Clothier Male Quartette: John Owens, Ednyfed Lewis, Harold Simonds, John Vandersloot, assisted by Loretta Kerk.

Official produce market and livestock market reports at 10 A.M. and 2 P.M. on 495 metres [wave length].

National Humanities Center  The Twenties in Contemporary Commentary: Radio 3

You hear the rumbling of an organization that in days to

come will be the most powerful in the world, and that is the

organization of “radio listeners.”

There are 5,000,000 radio sets in the United States,

costing $500,000,000, and those 5,000,000 sets undoubt-

edly have more than 25,000,000 of listeners.

There you have the possibilities of such an organization

as the world has never seen.

For the first time in the world’s history, outside of the

printed word, it becomes possible for one man to be heard

by all of the people at the same time.

An ancient Greek said that a nation could not remain

free when it became so big that its citizens could not all

meet in the public square, hear the speakers, and protect

their interests.

Today 115,000,000 of people can hear the president of

the United States speak at the same time, and in a few years

it will be possible for one man to be heard by every human

being on earth.

The difficulty will be to find anybody worthy of such an

audience.

And you can’t blame the newspapers for feeling a little

jumpy about radio. They took it when it was a helpless

youngster and they have set it well on the way toward a

husky adolescence. True, they did this because radio in its

early days was splendid news. It still is, for that matter.

Then to have this ungrateful child, nourished by pages of

publicity and columns of timetables [program schedules],

turn and snatch the bread from its benefactor’s handwhat

could be more discouraging?

The resulting jumpiness has manifested itself in many

ways. At one time most of the publishers decided to omit all

timetables. Of course their readers howled. The publishers

muffled their ears and sat tight. Roy Howard, chief of the

Scripps-Howard newspapers and the United Press, quietly

knocked the blockade into a cocked hat by announcing that

his newspapers believed in radio and he intended to print

more and better radio news, including timetables, than in

the past. The faint shuffling which followed was the falling

in line of the other papers.

The New York Times, Nov. 6, 1920 _______________________________________________________________________________________

The New York Times, Dec. 15, 1920

_______________________________________________________________________________________

The New York Times, Oct. 22, 1921

The United American: A Magazine of Good Citizenship, Dec. 1925 originally published in the Cleveland News, n.d.

Roy S. Durstine “We’re on the Air”

Scribner’s, May 1928

A former newspaperman, Durstine was cofounder with Bruce Barton of one of the

largest advertising agencies in the U.S.

National Humanities Center  The Twenties in Contemporary Commentary: Radio 4

The Forum, March & April 1929

The Forum, a magazine of social and political commentary, regularly invited point-counterpoint essays on contemporary issues. Woodard

was a writer of commentary and popular fiction. Harbord, a retired army officer, was president of the Radio Corporation of America.

__JACK WOODFORD__ “RADIO: A BLESSING OR A CURSE?” March 1929

__GEN. JAMES G. HARBORD__ “RADIO AND DEMOCRACY,” April 1929

Do you remember, a few years ago, how we

all felt a vague sort of elation when the wonder

of radio came to our attention? Ah, at last, we

said, here is something . . . something . . . we

were not quite sure what. Something over-

whelming that was going to broaden American

life and culture. Something that was going to

bring peace on earth and good will to men.

Something that was going to do everything but

change the actual physical line of North Amer-

ica. Do you think I exaggerate? Get out the

papers of a few years back and read the editorials.

And now we know what we have got in radio

just another disintegrating toy. Just another

mediumlike the newspapers, the magazines,

the billboards, and the mail boxfor advertisers

to use in pestering us. A blatant signboard

erected in the living room to bring us news of

miraculous oil burners, fuel-saving motor cars,

cigar lighters that always light. Formerly, despite

the movies, the automobile, the correspondence

course, and the appalling necessity most of us

feel for working at two or three jobs in order to

be considered successful, we still had some

leisure time. But radio, God’s great gift to man,

eliminated that last dangerous chance for Satan

to find mischief for idle hands. There is now

very little danger that Americans will resort to

the vice of thinking. . . .

The marvel of science which was to bring us

new points of view, new conceptions of life, has

degenerated in most homes into a mere excuse

for failing to entertain. Mr. and Mrs. Babbitt, 1

One of the ancient Greeks held that a few

thousand souls was the outside limit for the elec-

torate of a democracythat being the greatest

number that could be reached and swayed by a

single voice. But the Greeks did not foresee radio,

with its revolutionary effects upon the mechanism

of democratic government. They did not imagine

that the day would come when spellbinders like

Demosthenes would give way to a Herbert Hoo-

ver talking confidentially to a whole continent. . .

Now that radio has entered the field of poli-

tics, all that is changed. Voters may sit comfort-

ably at home and hear the actual voices of the

candidates. Every word, every accent and into-

nation comes to them directly without the possi-

bility of error or misconstruction. The transmis-

sion of intelligence has reached its height in

radio, for it goes beyond the power of the printed

word in conveying the exact tone and emphasis of

each phrase. . . .

One change that has been brought about by

radio is the elimination of mob feeling from

political audiences. The magnetism of the orator

cools when transmitted through the microphone;

the impassioned gesture is wasted upon it; the

purple period [empassioned oratory] fades before

it; the flashing eye meets in it no answering

glance. Though he be one of thirty millions, each

individual in the audience becomes a solitary

listener in the privacy of his own home. He is free

from the conta-gion of the crowd and only the

logic of the issue which the orator presents can

move him.

1 I.e., middle-class low-culture Americans, as satirized by Sinclair Lewis in the 1922 novel Babbitt.

RADIO A BLESSING

OR A CURSE?

National Humanities Center  The Twenties in Contemporary Commentary: Radio 5

who used to make a feint [pretence] at

conversation by repeating to each other and their

guests the ideas which they had gleaned from

the editorials in the morning paper, now no

longer go to that trouble. . . All the modern host

needs is his sixteen-tube Super-sophistication

and a ration of gin. The guests sit around the

radio and sip watered gin and listen to so-called

music inter-spersed with long lists of the

bargains to be had at Whosit’s Department Store

. . . Thus dies the art of conversation. Thus rises

the wonder of the centuryRadio! . . .

. . . Instead of hearing the pick of the country’s

brains, we hear potential Presidents explaining

how it is possible for them to be both wet and

dry, both conservative and liberal, both for and

against every issue before the “sover’n ’mer-

ican” voters of this splendid nation. And so it

will always be. . . .

And yet we believed that radio was about to

set up a new culture in America. Dr. S. Parkes

Cadman [Christian radio broadcaster], presiden-

tial timber [quality], Aimee Semple McPherson,

the Sunshine Boys [radio musical duo], all of

them crying aloudthat is the culture which the

radio to bringing to America. That sort of thing

is the radio’s fodder, and it will continue to be

radio fodder until the loudspeaker follows the

iron deer [Victorian lawn ornament] into blessed

oblivion. New culture indeed. New nothing! Just

the same old brummagem, 2 with the single

difference that it is brought to the home and

delivered like certified milk.. . .

. . . I predict that in two years, at the present

rate of advertising exploitation which the radio

is suffering, it will be as dead as a Democrat.

We can dig a grave for it, alongside the hand-

some mound now occupied by “Business

Ethics,” and put up a headstone over both graves

inscribed “Killed by Advertising.” Probably in

another five or ten years we can dig another

grave in the same lot for Television.

The New York Times commented upon this

effect of radio in the last campaign. “Radio has

come into its own,” it said, “over the doubts, and

some cases despite the vehement protests, of the

older school of politicians in both parties.” . . .

A persistent weakness in our American

scheme of government has been the lack of

popular interest in politics and the failure of a

great number of citizens to vote. The last

presidential election, however, with its huge

registration, gave evidence of a greatly increased

interest in the affairs of government. It is not

unreasonable to attribute a large part of this to

the broadcasting of political speeches. Radio

brought the candidates and the issues within the

family circle and made them topics of discussion

at every dinner table. . . .

In view of what radio has done for

government, it can no longer be waved aside as

a “novelty,” a box of tricks, or, as Mr. Woodford

prefers, an advertising agency. It is the only

means of instantaneous, general communication

yet devised by man. While it brings only sound

today, it promises sound with sight tomorrow. I

venture the prophecy that in the campaign of

1932 we shall both see and hear the candidates

by radio. Even today it links the nations together

and works in the interest of enduring peace. The

news of any important occurrence is flashed

almost immediately to every part of the globe.

International broadcasting will soon become a

commonplace. . . .

Meanwhile, in days of great danger to our

country, if unhappily they should come again,

radio will make it possible for our President to

appeal in his own voice to our millions,

personally rallying them to the support of our

nation. If the future of our democracy depends

upon the intelligence and cooperation of its

citizens, radio may contribute to its success

more than any other single influence.

2 brummagem: showy but worthless.

National Humanities Center  The Twenties in Contemporary Commentary: Radio 6

An early radio innovator, A. Atwater Kent was the world’s largest manufacturer of radios by the late 1920s.

To my mind, the outstanding feature of radio

in 1925 is the greater and greater part it is taking

in our everyday life. Every achievement of the

year in radio has contributed to that. So in radio

history I believe 1925 will be set down as the year

when radio broadcasting began to assume a place

in our daily affairs and when it began to take its place as a utility.

A contribution to this is the linkup of many broadcasting stations. Nineteen twenty-six will see a still

greater linkup, and with little difficulty I can imagine a possible lineup through which nearly half the

people who are in the United States could hear a speaker. The greatest possibilities lie therein. If

necessary the President of the United States could rouse the Nation in the event of war. Messages

requiring instantaneous transmission could be communicated instantly direct to the homes. . . .

Radio will never take the place of the teacher in the classroom, but it will supplement her work; it will

bring things of value to her and the time will come when every schoolroom will have its radio receiving

set and the programs will be so varied and classified that it will be possible to tune in on things of special

interest almost at any hour of the day.

The development of a system of super-

radio broadcasting that would bring about an

exchange of the culture of America with that

of Europe, South America, and the Orient was

predicted recently by David Sarnoff, vice-president and general manager of the Radio Corp. of America,

in an address to the Boston Chamber of Commerce. Mr. Sarnoff said the present development called for a

national broadcasting system “ready for any public emergency, with facilities adequate to cover the entire

country and to read across the ocean whenever desired.”

He predicted a great step forward in the political education of American people where the masses may

listen to debates in Congress, and foresaw the day when the board of education in every metropolitan

community would include in its activities a special extension course broadcast from local stations. He also

suggested the possible artistic leadership of radio, when the opera and the stage would draw talent from

the broadcasting stations.

Library of Congress

“A. Atwater Kent Discusses Present Problems and Future Possibilities of Radio” The Talking Machine World, Jan. 15, 1926

“Discusses Use of Radio in Exchange of Culture” The Talking Machine World

January 15, 1926

Cartoonist: Frank Hanely The New Yorker, May 30, 1925 Reproduced by permission of the New Yorker.

National Humanities Center  The Twenties in Contemporary Commentary: Radio 7

This year radio will elect a President. There is

eminent authority for that statement.

Calvin Coolidge believes radio is in large measure

responsible for his popularity, and the White House view

is that if radio can popularize a President it can elect one. . . .

In 1924 a really comprehensive radio campaign was impossible. Broadcasting stations were scattered

and without central organization for program purposes. Receiving sets were fewer and such speeches as

were broadcast frequently hit only the ear of an experimenter in his workshop, entirely missing most of

the voters.

But now the radio set has been brought into the living room, accepted by the women, and the radio

chain has been perfected. You can link up three big radio networks today and broadcast at once through

sixty of the biggest stations. If you are important enough, or clever enough, your voice will be heard

through receiving sets in five million homes. . . .

[Theodore] Roosevelt lives in

our memories as our most

strenuous campaigner. But,

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