Eighty years ago this month, the June 1937 issue of Radio Craft offered this idea for how the radio man could make life easier for the owners of the nation’s 250,000 trailers. The issue is billed as the “private address” number, and contains a number of articles about “private address” systems, or what we would more commonly call intercoms.

In this case, the wife, unencumbered by the nuisance of seat belt laws, is busy cooking breakfast while her husband motors to their next campsite. If they need to talk, they have the convenience of a private address system, possibly including a radio.

The magazine suggests that the radio is best mounted back in the trailer, where it benefits from a greater distance from the car’s ignition system, and where it has the possibility of a larger antenna. The sound can be piped to the driver, to be interrupted only when told that it’s time to pull over for breakfast.