A hundred years ago today, the young entrepreneur wishing to acquire a wide variety of interesting products couldn’t go wrong by getting him or herself into the bluing business, courtesy of this ad from the Washington Times, August 20, 1922. I suppose a few kids might have desired the football, the doll, or the dollhouse, but we would like to think that the more popular items were the telescope, the camera, the air rifle, or the moving picture machine. The “school box with fountain pen” is notable for the fact that it includes a knife. If a kid today showed up with a school box containing a pocket knife, the SWAT team would probably be called in, and the poor kid expelled. But a hundred years ago, it was perfectly normal for a kid to bring this useful tool with him to school.

Of course, the most interesting item available was the radio. According to the ad, this fine Radio Receiving Set was a genuine scientific instrument, made of first class material. It included the tuning coil, detector, and condenser and was capable of pulling in stations from 15-25 miles away. With it, the young salesman could catch messages, singing, lectures, and radio news of all sorts. The whole family would enjoy it.

To earn the radio, the youngster would need to sell 28 packages of bluing at 10 cents each. Now, if that youngster reads the ad carefully, he will notice that the ad doesn’t say anything about a headphone being included. So unless Junior happened to already own a headphone, he would need to sell 28 more packages of bluing to earn the radio ear piece.

But still, making sales totaling $5.60 seems pretty reasonable and achievable. So to get started, the young salesperson just needed to write to the Bluine Mfg. Co., 150 Mill St., Concord Junction, Mass.

Perhaps some readers have gotten this far and don’t know what “bluing”  is.  It was more common back in the day, but it’s not used so much any more. “Bluing” is simply a blue dye, a small amount of which is added to the rinse water when washing white items. The effect is to make the whites whiter, since they turn grey or yellow with age. The blue dye covers up these colors, giving the illusion that the cotton fabric is whiter. The bluing provided by the Bluine Mfg. Co. was impregnated into pieces of paper, which were sold a dozen to the package. Therefore, they were easy not only to toss in the wash, but also to send through the mail, making the product ideal for this type of distribution.

Even though it’s less popular today, to the point where most people haven’t heard of it, the laws of physics haven’t changed since 1922, and adding a bit of bluing to the whites will still have the same effect of making them whiter. And as with everything else, you can still buy it on Amazon at the links below.  Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be available impregnated in small pieces of paper.  Instead, it comes in a liquid, or in a small solid square.  You cut off a small piece and mix with warm water to make your own liquid.  Since you use only a few drops, and of these will probably last the typical household years.

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Seventy-five years ago, the gentleman shown here wanted one of the new soldering guns, but didn’t want to pay the high prices they were then commanding. So he did what anyone would have done, namely, make his own. He started with a power transformer, and removed the secondary windings by cutting them with a hacksaw, leaving the primary winding in place. He then added a new secondary winding of Number 4 stranded wire, with enough turns to provide a voltage of 1/2 volt. Since the voltage was stepped down by a factor of 240, the secondary current was stepped up by the same amount, which was short circuited through a 12 gauge copper wire, which served as the heating element. The author reported that in 10 seconds, the tip was ready to be tinned.

Fortunately, today, the costs are low enough that it’s not necessary to make your own tool. As you can see below, equivalent soldering guns are quite reasonably priced. And for those of us who prefer an old-school iron, the cost can be even lower.

The plans appeared in Radio Craft, August 1947.

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Shown here, 75 years ago, is the assembly line of Templetone Radio Mfg. Corporation. The picture appeared on the cover of Radio News, August 1947, which noted that postwar radio sales were at an all-time high, and that this assembly line was typical of the activity of radio plants throughout the country.

The factory was located at 100 Garfield Avenue, New London, CT. The building still stands, and is shown below. It was built in 1920 and originally known as the Edward Bloom Silk Mill.
The building, judging from the Google street view below, appears vacant, but is apparently in the process of being converted to housing.

Sixty years ago this month, the August 1962 issue of the British Practical Wireless carried the plans for this handsome set, dubbed the “Atlantic S.W. Two” The two-tube regenerative set was designed for 15-40 meters, but with plug-in coils, the range could be extended. It was said to give good performance and was easy to construct. Also shown was an AC power supply, with transformer, which kept the headphones isolated from the high voltages, and rendered the set safe.

Seventy-five years ago, if you wanted to be the first on your block with a receiver for the new postwar FM band, you couldn’t go wrong with the Model FM-7 receiver kit from the Radio Kits Company, 120 Cedar Street, New York.

The set was complete with speaker, but there was also provision to use the set as a tuner to feed a separate hi-fi amplifier. The RF section was pretuned at the factory.

This ad appeared in the August 1947 issue of Radio Craft.  You can find a schematic of the set at this link.

And if you want to put together your own FM radio today (and practice your soldering skills at the same time), you can’t go wrong with the Elenco kit shown here.

And if Junior wants in on the fun, then the Snap Circuits FM receiver shown below can be put together by kids of any age. The manufacturer recommends it for kids over 8 years old, but as long as Junior knows not to eat the parts, it should be fine.

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Starting about a hundred years ago, radio was becoming very much a rural phenomenon, as shown by this cover illustration from the August 1922 issue of Radio News.

For an interesting scholarly look at radio’s impact on rural America, see the article “Radio in the 1920s: A Social Force in South Dakota,” by Reynold M. Wik, South Dakota History, Vol. 11, p. 94 (1981).

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This handsome one-tube six-meter transceiver made its debut 60 years ago this month, in the August 1962 issue of Popular Electronics.  The set was put together by author Michael Robbins, K6OAH, who reported that from his Los Angeles location, during a band opening, the set was able to pull in signals from the Mexican to the Canadian border. The transmitter put out a respectable 2 watts.

The secret of the design was the 6EZ8 triple triode. On receive, it allowed one stage of RF amplification before the superregenerative receiver, which probably meant that the receiver didn’t radiate an annoying signal. The set ran on AC power, although it included two flashlight batteries to power the carbon microphone.

Shown here from a hundred years ago is one of the first examples of a radio-phonograph combination. According to the August 1922 issue of Popular Mechanics, the set was a one-control radio receiver with a super-amplifier (using three tubes to accomplish what had previously required five) mounted in the cabinet of a console phonograph. The radio was connected to the phonograph’s horn, and no ground or antenna connection was required, thanks to a special loop antenna.

With a single control, the owner simply tuned the set to the correct wavelength.