Merry Christmas from OneTubeRadio.com!

This photo establishes conclusively that Santa Claus has been placing radios under the tree for a full century, since the photo was taken on Christmas, 1919.

Shown is the family of U.S. Secretary of War Newton Baker. From left to right are his daughter Betty  (Elizabeth Baker McGean), son Jack (Newton D. Baker, III), daughter Peggy (Mrs. Fulton Wright), and wife Elizabeth. The younger children were obviously extra good that year, since Peggy is shown playing her Schroeder-style toy piano, and was probably also the recipient of the doll bed shown in the background.

But young Master Jack had obviously been very deserving, since Santa brought him a radio! Not only was he probably the first on his block (child or adult) to have a radio, it was probably one of the first ever received as a Christmas present. The wartime ban on private radio receivers (presumably ordered by his father) had only ended on April 15 of that year.  (The transmitting ban ended on October 1.)

The site from which this picture is taken, Shorpy.com (see more information below) has a high-resolution copy,which allows more detail of the radio to be seen. Unfortunately, there’s not enough to be able to positively identify the set, but it does appear to be a fairly high-end crystal set, not unlike the A.C. Gilbert model 4007 shown at the right (from the January, 1920, issue of Electrical Experimenter).  According to another ad for that set, the list price was $25, and it was said to have a range of 200 miles.  The one in the picture looks comparable.  Since Master Jack lived right in Washington, he certainly would have been able to pull in the strong signals of station NAA in Arlington. Of course, any voice modulation was extremely rare at that time, so he would need to sit down and teach himself the code. And he wouldn’t hear anything with the set under the tree, since it doesn’t appear to be hooked up to antenna and ground. But since he was right in Washington, only a modest antenna would have been required to pull in the powerful government station. So I suspect he was hearing sounds out of the headphones Christmas night.

Shorpy.com

The image above is courtesy of Shorpy, an amazing archive of thousands of historical American photographs from the 1850s to the 1950s. The Washington Post describes the site as one which offers a chance to time travel. We hope the same can be said about OneTubeRadio.com. As you celebrate Christmas today, enjoy this opportunity to visit a young radio listener a century ago. If you gaze closely enough at the photo, perhaps you’ll be able to hear the buzz of NAA’s arc coming through those headphones.