A Hundred Years of Progress

A hundred years ago, there were rail vehicles running down the middle of the street, and they discovered that people were getting run over. (It turns out they didn’t have a steering wheel.) The solution was the “Safety First Campaign” with inspiring slogans such as “Pedestrians: Get The Safety Habit,” “Don’t Take Chances,” and “Employees Trying To Do Their Part.”

Now that we’re once again running billion dollar rail vehicles without steering wheels down the middle of the street, it’s probably time to dust off that old safety campaign.



Bomb at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, 1914

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A hundred years ago this evening, a bomb exploded in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. One person was injured, and the New York Evening World had an extra edition with this banner headline on the street the same evening.

Despite the size of the headline, I had never heard of this incident, and it’s barely mentioned in the historical record.

The rector of the Cathedral, Msgr. Michael Lavelle, (1856-1939) is quoted as describing it as “a small bomb. It did little actual damage outside of splintering some of the pews and tearing a hold in the floor about two feet square. It filled the interior of the church with smoke and caused a lot of excitement among the worshipers. I have no idea who did it. I have received no threatening letters of any kind in a long time and am at peace with the world.”

The October 15 issue of the New York Tribune reported that the Reds were rejoicing over this and other church bombings, and that the police were seeking an I.W.W. plot that “menaced many.”

There was very little actual damage and the indicent has been forgotten. But there were banner headlines, people to blame, and general excitement. Very little has changed in a hundred years.



A Look at 1939 Prices

EconomyBoys1939Here’s a sampling of what your money would buy 75 years ago today, on October 12, 1939. This ad for a store named “Economy Boys” appeared in the Milwaukee Journal.

Two radios for the home were shown. The least expensive was a four-tube Tiny Teletone for $5.44. An Admiral five-tube superhet “with television connection” was available for $10.95. Both of these radios had bakelite cases. For the car, a Troubado auto radio was available for $17.45. It had six pushbutton presets, and could also be manually tuned. A better image of this car radio can be found at RadioMuseum.org.

Radios were but a small part of what Economy Boys had for sale. Tires for your car started at $4.33, batteries started at $2.49, and spark plugs were 22 cents. Two gallons of motor oil were 88 cents. A bicycle cost $17.44. GE light bulbs were a dime. If you were willing to settle for “Elram” bulbs, they could be had for 7-1/2 cents each.

Economy Boys also seemed to have everything for the hunter. Rifles started at $4.69, and shotguns started at $6.66. Shotgun shells were 67 cents for a box of 25, and .22 cartridges were 16-2/3 cents for a box of 50.



An Idea That Never Quite Caught On

SignGunA hundred years ago this month, October 1914, Popular Mechanics magazine leads with one of those ideas that seemed like a good idea at the time, but for some reason never quite caught on. Someone had finally tackled the problem of what to do for advertising campaigns of wide scope which used many small outdoor signs. It required a small army of men who tediously had to climb ladders and tack up the signs.

Those days were over, or so they thought. This new invention was a gun which shot the signs, which were wrapped around a heavy stick. This stick had a tack at the end which would affix itself to the building or utility pole. The sign was attached to the tack by a string, and when it struck the wall, it would unravel and display itself. Posters could reportedly be mounted at heights of 30 feet from a distance of 50 feet.

The article was silent as to how to get the sign down.



J. Frank Wheaton, Minnesota Republican Legislator

In many ways, the story of J. Frank Wheaton doesn’t fit in with a lot of people’s preconceptions of history. Therefore, he is simply ignored. Nobody has ever heard of J. Frank Wheaton. His story simply didn’t fit in with what people wanted to believe.

J. Frank Wheaton was the first African-American member of the Minnesota Legislature, and he was a Republican. He was elected to the House of Representatives in 1898 and served one term, after which he took a job out of state. He represented a district in southwest Minneapolis that was called “the most aristocratic portion of Minneapolis.” It included the Kenwood neighborhood of Minneapolis, and extended to modern day Eden Prairie and Excelsior. Of over 40,000 residents in the district, only about 100 were African-American.

In addition to being the first African-American to serve in the legislature, he was also the last until 1973, when Roy Pleasant of Minneapolis took office.

And Wheaton was by no means any kind of “token” Black. He was widely recognized as a brilliant attorney. He was the first African-American graduate of the University of Minnesota Law School in 1894, and was elected class orator. He worked in both state and city government in addition to his private practice.

Wheaton was also a Republican. Later in his life, after moving to New York, he became a Democrat. But in Minnesota, in addition to serving in the legislature as a Republican, he was twice elected to represent the state at the Republican National Convention.

He was featured in an article in the St. Paul Globe on February 12, 1899. Wheaton introduced into the legislature, and successfully saw passed, a measure to ban discrimination based upon race in public accommodations. The language of this 1899 statute is virtually identical to the language subsequently used in the federal Civil Rights Act of 1964. Once again, Wheaton’s story doesn’t fit in with the conventional narrative, which holds that Civil Rights flowed from federal action in the 1960’s. In truth, more than six decades earlier, Wheaton had seen this measure passed in the state legislature, with little notice taken of the common-sense provisions.

I find it appalling that nobody has ever heard of J. Frank Wheaton. He doesn’t fit the conventional narrative, so he is simply ignored.

References

J. Frank Wheaton at Minnesota Legislature

J. Frank Wheaton at Wikipedia

African American Registry

BlackPast.org

 



German Bird’s Eye View of Paris, 1914

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A hundred years ago today, October 10, 1914, the Arizona Republican carried this aerial photo of Paris, taken from a German aeroplane. The paper notes that the pilot and photographer, one Lieutenant Thin, had received the Iron Cross. Undoubtedly the intended audience for this photo was the French: If the Germans can take a photograph from the air, then they can drop a bomb from the air, which is exactly what they had been doing.

In other war news, the papers were reporting that Antwerp had fallen, and that the Belgian government had reconstituted itself inside France.


One Tube, a Hot Chassis, and a “Curtain Burner”

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I guess if you really had your heart set on building a one-tube radio 75 years ago, this one might provide some amusement. It’s from Popular Mecahnics, October 1939.  It is, indeed, a radio, and it has one tube.

As you can see from the circuit, it’s basically a crystal set with an audio amplifier. The audio amplifier uses a 25A7GT, which is a pentode and rectifier in the same glass. To run the 25 volt filament from 110 volts, it relies on a line-cord resistor. The cord to the set does double duty: In addition to supplying 110 volts for the B+, it has a second conductor made of resistance wire to power the filament, and just maybe set fire to the curtains if it gets too close. In fact, this type of line cord was popularly known as the curtain burner.  And as you can see, the chassis is “hot.” If the switch is turned on, there’s a 50/50 chance that you would get zapped by 110 volts if you touched the chassis while also touching anything that was grounded.  (According to the pictorial diagram, the antenna ground is not hooked to the chassis, so it wouldn’t provide any safety).

Like any crystal set, the radio requires an external antenna and ground. It has no main tuning condenser. Instead, “the set is designed primarily to receive the ‘best’ broadcast station in any given area,” and you just tuned it once with a small trimmer condenser.

There’s no volume control, but if that station comes in too loud, you can just detune it a little bit.

If you want to build a replica of a vintage one-tube radio, there are probably a lot better choices. But for a beginner 75 years ago who wanted to work his way up from a crystal set, this one was certainly an option. I just hope that his parents warned him to keep the thing away from the curtains and not plug it in near the bathtub.



Private Lauren Gilbert “Duby” Reid, 1896-1918.

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During the centennial of World War 1, this page periodically remembers American servicemen who gave their lives in that war.

Private Lauren Gilbert “Duby” Reid of Virginia City, Nevada, died on this day in 1918. He was born in Storey County, Nevada, on March 28, 1896, one of three children and the only son of William Garrence and Ellen Reid. He was wounded by shrapnel in the Bois d’Apremont, northeast of Binarville, Argonne Forest, France, and died of his wounds the next day, October 8, 1918, just over a month before the Armistice. He was one of the Lost Battalion of about 554 men cut off and completely surrounded by German forces during the  Meuse-Argonne Offensive, in which over 26,000 other American soldiers also lost their lives. The battle was the largest in U.S. history, and involved 1.2 million American soldiers. Some 70,000 French soldiers were also killed, as were between 90,000 and 120,000 Germans.

Private Reid served in the U.S. Army, 308th Infantry Regiment, 77th Division, Company G. His grave is at the Meuse-Argonne American Cemetery, Romagne, France. His record can be viewed at the website of the American Battle Monuments Commission.

American Legion Duby Reid Post 30, Sparks Nevada, is named in his memory and continues to honor him.

The photo above is from Soldiers of the Great War, Volume 2, page 219.

Read More at Amazon


Popular Electronics First Issue, October 1954

First issue of Popular Electronics

First issue of Popular Electronics

Sixty years ago this month, the very first issue of Popular Electronics magazine, October 1954, rolled off the presses of the Ziff-Davis Publishcing Company.  The complete issue is available online along with millions of other pages of old radio and electronics publications at
americanradiohistory.com.

Transistors were already on the horizon, since the issue contains an ad from Raytheon for the CK-722 transistor, along with the offer, “Raytheon will supply you with complete information free. Just write to Department P.”

There’s a guest editorial from ARRL president Goodwin Dosland, W0TSN, extolling the virtues of Amateur Radio, the international hobby. Robert Hertzberg, W2DJJ, gives some pointers on getting the ticket in Part 1 of “So You Want to be a Ham.”

Carl and Jerry Stories at Amazon


Construction projects include a four-tube bicycle radio (powered by a 90 volt B battery and 1.5 volt filament battery), a fire alarm (with low melting point alloy sensors), a light meter, and a code practice oscillator.

For those who want to dabble in servicing radios, there are two articles on how to align or repair an AM radio, although one cautions that beginners should steer clear of FM and TV receivers with their more complex circuitry.

The first “Carl & Jerry” story by John Frye also appears in the issue.


World War 2 Short Wave Listening

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Seventy-five years ago, Europe was once again at war, but America was for the time being neutral. But the shortwave bands were alive with the sounds of war, and Radio Guide, the predecessor to TV Guide magazine, was covering shortwave radio. The issue of the week ending October 6, 1939, gave some pointers for tuning in, as well as reviews of what could be heard from the European capitals. One article notes that “many listeners have given up tuning short waves in disgust after one or two feeble attempts, mainly because they did not know exactly where and when to tune for foreign programs intended for their consumption.” The article assures that by following the given instructions carefully, many stations could be heard.

Another article reviews the programs, and notes that the BBC attempted to appeal directly to the German people, and continued in its musical program to include German composers. It notes that French broadcasts were typically quite terse.

And as for the Germans, the article notes that while the output is typically crude, “the German stations have come up with the up-to-now cleversest device of combining propaganda with entertainment.” The station would play German waltzes and “only after the listener has settled down to a stretch of pure entertainment that the announcer quietly intersperses” propaganda.

For more information on the shortwave bands during the War, please visit my earlier post.