Essay On 1920s Radio

In the 1920s there was no ABC news. No sports announcements. No CD players. No television. Before the 1920s, they only had newspapers and live sports. Then, the radio came. In the 1920s and 30s the radio impacted culture by informing the public of news, bringing together America’s music and sports, and even uniting America to stop the Great Depression and restore faith in government.

The radio was first invented in 1895. At first, people were unaware of the possible uses radios would eventually hold. Twenty five years after the radio was invented, the beginning of commercial broadcasting radio stations began with the KDKA in Pittsburgh. During that time, the war began a mass production of radios which let to more common households owning

them instead of radios being a rich people’s toy, as they were considered previously. Radio’s sales spread as radios were cheaper and people had more money to spend in the 1920s. By the end of the decade, more than twelve million households owned them.
Radios changed America through news as people switched from reading newspapers to listening to the radio starting November 2, 1920 with the first newscast, which was more convenient and frequent. Unlike newspapers, radios could transmit information live, unlike newspapers, therefore they began to rival the popularity of newspapers (Britannica). People could hear events immediately and could do so while cooking or doing other activities . This allowed America to be more informed, more efficiently, and more often, so everybody could hear the news. Different radio stations could broadcast news about events in distant places, therefore granting listeners news, not only from their area, but around the United States, or even beyond. Now, average citizens could be easily conscious about incidents happening that day, which led to a new era of newscasting in America. It brought new topics of conversation as it empowered the whole United States to attend presidential debates, and, for many, it gave a source of learning and entertainment (Britannica). Listening to the news on the radio became a daily activity for many, therefore changing what the nation expected of the news and bringing a new, relatively cheap, source of entertainment for many.
On April 11, 1921 a new type of news was broadcasted, sports coverage (Britannica). Sports’ coverage popularised commentators and the sports culture of the time. Previously, if one wanted to keep up with a sports team, they would need to attend all the games or read scores in the newspapers. With radio, they could conveniently tune in to the games no matter where they were. This spread the popularity of sports, particularly baseball. Many baseball commentators became famous for certain catch lines, which led them to be known as the voice of the team. One popular catch phrase was baseball commentator, Mel Allen’s, “How about that!” which started in 1939 and eventually became a term known across America (Bondi 266). His and many other announcers were a core source of the multitude of new fans of sports in the 1920s and 30s.
Another cultural impact of radios, was the spread of musical trends.

Music’s presence on radios became revolutionary at the time. Before radio, music was something a person would need to listen to live or buy music for phonographs, which in the Depression of the 1930s became expensive (Hollis). Going out to see music or buying it were activities for a limited amount of people. Because of this, the types of popular music were isolated to what was played in the area, but radios changed that. When music on radios first started, “Musical bridges were used as a transition between scenes and might indicate a change in mood from comedic to dramatic” (Britannica). But it would move on to more. One example of a star that owed his fame to the radio was Benny Goodman, often called the “King of Swing” (Britannica). He played clarinet in a band, and he became popular due to a spot on the radio show Let’s Dance. On a tour they almost considered quitting because of the dislike of their new style of music, but when they performed at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles where the crowd, many fans of Let’s Dance, went crazy (Britannica). The revolution of swing music began, but without the radio the music would not have been a hit and the crowds would have continued to think Benny Goodman’s music strange. Furthermore, the performance was broadcasted on the radio, and the morning after it was such a success that it made headlines. “The King of Swing” started a music culture which many Americans

listened to vigorously in the years to come, but without the radio he would not have become the celebrity he did. Many other types of music, such as blues, western music, and hillbilly music, also became popular due to the radio (Bondi 311). Because of radios, new music trends spread quickly across America, and people found a new source of at home entertainment which would continue to be used to this day.
Radios also revolutionized how presidential candidates presented to the public, and the broadcasts were able to bring together the ideas of a nation as never seen before.

Now, presidential debates could easily be broadcasted and more people could have a sense of what they believed in and wanted to vote for. This became more important than ever when the Great Depression hit soon after the stock market crash on October 29, 1929. With twenty-five percent of the working class with no jobs, people began to lose hope in their government (Bondi 201). People did not think the government would help them and it began a feeling of doubt throughout the entire nation. Then, Franklin Delano Roosevelt was elected president in 1933. He knew the nation was falling apart with distrust in the very people running them, and it would take more than laws to reunite the people again. They needed to believe those laws would help them. In order to unite the people as one community and bring the nation back to what it once was, he needed to have a strong voice people could believe in. The radio was the answer to spreading his message to everyone and in giving them confidence that his solutions could help them. Roosevelt broadcasted his first fireside chat on March 12, 1933, named because people could listen like Roosevelt was sitting with them at their fireplace. He spoke to the people about his New Deal, but in a different way than others would do. This was done by talking to the people as if they

were close to him, not as if he was trying to rule them. People saw the president in a way they never had before, as a friend. He did this by beginning “many of the nighttime chats with the greeting “My friends,” and referred to himself as “I” and the American people as “you” as if addressing his listeners directly and personally” (History.com). Because almost ninety percent of the population owned radios by 1939 he was able to bring a nation together to agree with his policies, so much that the nation had never agreed on politics that tremendously before (Bondi 156). Because of the unified nation he polished his goal to give people not only a sense of trust in their government that they had lost but a sense that he was their friend and would work with them, not simply tell them what to do (Bondi 202). Through radios, the ideas of a nation were made synonymous in order to stop the depression which at first left many hopeless.
The new uses of the radio changed America’s culture by merging people’s ideas and bearing a modern source of entertainment. For many, music, sports, news became a cheap source of distraction during the Great Depression. More greatly, it changed and unified the ideas of a nation in order to stop a crisis. But mostly, the radio became a device in which many Americans were reliant on. Before they were mass produced, hardly anybody listened to the radio. But, by the end of the 1930s almost every citizen owned a radio and took part in listeni