JF Ptak Science Books  Quick Post

The “pre-Internet” here of course is radio, just as the wired telegraph was the pre-radio, and so on down the turtle stack, and these images and stories from Illustrated World from 1922 celebrate the newness of that invention. The thing about radio though was that the makings for commercial broadcast radio were in place for a good solid decade–maybe even 15 years–before the bright idea landed within someone to broadcast on radio out into the rest of the U.S.  That first honor belongs to KDKA, using Westinghouse equipment and operating from “east Pittsburgh” on November 2, 1920, and discussing the presidential election returns for the Harding-Cox context…and delivering the news so that people could hear it before they read it.  By the time these covers appear in IW radio broadcasting was two years deep, and the idea of expanding the medium’s scope was certainly presenting itself–people had gotten married and played checkers before remotely by telegraph, but with some time-lag; and certainly there was no sound involved. This was pretty hot stuff in 1922, a real barometric increase in the possibilities of electronics. (By the way, just two years later, in 1924, there would be 600 commercial broadcast stations, and another three years later RCA would found NBC and go nation-wide.)