Abstract
The connection between radio broadcasting and the talking motion picture cannot be overemphasized. The acceptance of the sound film would not have happened as quickly as it did were it not for the radio. Broadcasting was grabbed onto by the public beginning in 1920, quickly leading to better programming and better radios, all of which would directly influence the advancement of the movie from silent to sound. And it was not just the improvement in the radio set itself. It was the arrival of the missing voice, something that would seem very natural by the middle of the 1920s. By the time radio broadcasting had exploded in popularity, the movie studios were already worrying out loud that it would kill the silent film, and that the public would rather stay home and listen to their favorite radio programs than go to a movie theater. This was troublesome.
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Notes
- 1.
Lee de Forest, writing in Radio World, October, 1923.
- 2.
Susan Douglas, Inventing American Broadcasting, Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, 1987, p280.
- 3.
Gleason L. Archer, History of Radio to 1926, American Historical Society, 1938, New York, p165.
- 4.
Two of the important early works on the formation of RCA and early radio are: Gleason A. Archer, History of Radio to 1926, American Historical Society, 1938, New York; Eric Barnouw, A Tower in Babel, Oxford University Press, NY, 1966.
- 5.
Eric Barnouw, A Tower in Babel, Oxford University Press, NY, 1966, p72.
- 6.
Clark left a giant legacy now called the Clark Radiana Collection at the Smithsonian History Center.
- 7.
One of the hundreds of poems in the Perham de forest papers.
- 8.
Gleason L. Archer, History of Radio to 1926, American Historical Society, 1938, New York, p88.
- 9.
Joseph Baudino and John M. Kittross, “Broadcasting’s Oldest Stations: An Examination of Four Claimants,” Journal of Broadcasting, 21:1, Winter 1977, BEA, Broadcast Education Association.
- 10.
Leslie McFarlane, Ghost of the Hardy Boys, Methuen, 1976.
- 11.
Allen Chapman, The Radio Boys at the Sending Station, Grosset and Dunlap, 1922.
- 12.
Margaret Penrose, The Radio Girls on the Program, Cupples and Leon, NY, 1922, p201.
- 13.
Ibid.
- 14.
The author has studied all the Radio News volumes between 1919 and 1925, the important transition years from amateur interest to the commercialization of radio broadcasting. The collections of Paul Bourbin and the James Maxwell Memorial Library of the California Historical Radio Society in Berkeley have mostly complete collections of all radio-themed periodicals.
- 15.
Radio Amateur News, July 1919.
- 16.
Ibid.
- 17.
Radio Amateur News, Sep 1919.
- 18.
Marvin R. Bensman, The Beginning of Broadcast Regulation in the Twentieth Century, McFarland & Co, NC, 2000, p8.
- 19.
Radio Amateur News, September, 1919.
- 20.
Ibid.
- 21.
Ibid.
- 22.
Ibid.
- 23.
Ibid.
- 24.
Opera by Subscription? Yes, as mentioned in an earlier chapter, to receive the broadcasts of the Metropolitan Opera today, you do need a subscription to the satellite radio service Sirius/XM.
- 25.
Radio Amateur News, September, 1919.
- 26.
Lee de Forest, writing in Radio Amateur News, Sept 1919.
- 27.
Radio Amateur News, Sept 1919.
- 28.
Radio Amateur News, November, 1919.
- 29.
Radio Amateur News, May 1920.
- 30.
Ibid.
- 31.
Ibid.
- 32.
Radio News July, 1920.
- 33.
Ibid.
- 34.
Ibid.
- 35.
Radio News, June 1920.
- 36.
Radio News, August, 1921.
- 37.
Radio News, October 1921.
- 38.
Ibid.
- 39.
Radio News, December, 1921.
- 40.
Ibid.
- 41.
Ibid.
- 42.
Radio News, January 1922.
- 43.
Ibid.
- 44.
RCA, “Radio Enters the Home,” catalogue, 1922.
- 45.
RCA, Radio Enters the Home, catalogue, 1922; The $18.00 and $350.00 radios of 1922 would translate into $200-$800 to $4,000-$10,000 in today’s dollars, the high price of early adoption.
- 46.
Kendall and Koehler, Radio Simplified, 1923, John Winston Co, NY.
- 47.
Radio News, April 1922.
- 48.
Ibid.
- 49.
Dearborn Independent, August 8, 1922.
- 50.
Ibid.
- 51.
Radio News, Aug 1922.
- 52.
Clifford J. Doerksen, American Babble, Rogue Radio Broadcasters of the Jazz Age, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2005, p20.
- 53.
Ibid.
- 54.
History of Radio to 1926, Gleason A. Archer, American Historical Society, 1938, New York, p398.
- 55.
Clifford J. Doerksen, American Babble, Rogue Radio Broadcasters of the Jazz Age, University of Pennsylvania Press, Philadelphia, 2005, p118.
- 56.
Radio World, Oct, 1923.
- 57.
Ibid.
- 58.
The Perham de Forest papers at History San Jose contain an incredible number, in the thousands, of books, newspapers, magazines, flyers, pamphlets and brochures, both mass media and trade publications, with articles by and about de Forest. One reason we know so much about him is that he was always available to reporters and he made them feel welcome.
- 59.
Radio News, July, 1923.
- 60.
De Forest, writing in the Miami News, Feb 10, 1923.
- 61.
Radio Broadcast, October 1927.
- 62.
Radio News, April 1927.
- 63.
The author’s 1985 PBS series, “Radio Collector” showed the progression of technology and audience in the 1920s. This was accomplished by interviewing dozens of radio technology historians who showed and talked about the significance of the various eras of radio.
- 64.
Radio News, various issues, 1923.
- 65.
Radio Broadcast, Oct, 1927.
- 66.
Radio Dealer, June, 1922.
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Adams, M. (2012). Radio’s Arrival. In: Lee de Forest. Springer, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4614-0418-7_5
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