Ninety years ago, Christmas 1925 was a Radio Christmas for this family, shown on the cover of that month’s issue of Radio in the Home enjoying their new set.

Radio was coming of age, and it was no longer the sole province of home do-it-yourself tinkerers. The magazine asked the question: “Will our next radio set be home-made or factory-assembled?” While it didn’t provide a definitive answer, the handwriting was on the wall, and most homes with radio would be getting a factory built set. It noted though, that “some of us prefer a home-made set, just as we prefer mother’s home-made cake; whereas the rest of us are going to the store and buy the best set which our pocketbook can afford, just as the apartment dweller buys bakery goods because the kitchenette is too small to permit manufacture of a full-size cake.”

By 1925, almost three times as much money was spent on sets as was spent on parts, what the magazine. But back in 1922, ten times as much was spent on parts as compared with manufactured sets. So in just three years, there had been a radical shift toward the factory sets.

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