A hundred years ago, the New York Sun, May 14, 1914, reports that the voice of Enrico Caruso was broadcast from New York to Philadelphia. The broadcast took place from the roof of the Wanamaker Department Store, and was also announced in the advertisement shown here.

The paper reports that “scores of amateur wireless enthusiasts in Greater New York and along the Jersey coast were mystified over hearing through their receivers the voice of Caruso singing.” The “tenor’s phonographic tones were clearly heard by the operator at the wireless station at the Wanamaker store in Philadelphia,” and also that a “commercial message, dealing with ordinary business of the day” was transmitted as well.

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On this day 92 years ago, The Ashland (Oregon) Weekly Tidings published these instructions for constructing a radio set. As you can see, it’s simply a crystal set. Also shown is a test buzzer, which it describes as being “in reality a miniature radio transmitting station” to test the detector and find the crystal’s sweet spot in the absence of an actual station.

This article bears the dateline of New York, and it’s undoubtedly a news service item that was published in many local papers. The issue also includes a list of broadcast stations in operation. None in Oregon is listed, but there are stations in Seattle, Spokane, Yakima, as well as Los Angeles. The test buzzer would probably be a necessity for the Oregon listener to ensure the radio was ready to pull in one of these distant stations at night.

In this listing, WLAG, the predecessor of WCCO, is not yet listed. Minneapolis is on the map with WLB, the station at the University of Minnesota and predecessor of KUOM.

In retrospect, both of my sets of grandparents were fairly early adopters of radio. My dad’s family had a radio, I’m guessing in the early 1930’s. And I believe this was before the farm was electrified, so this was probably a battery set. My maternal grandfather built an early crystal set, probably about this same time as these plans were published, or shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, I don’t have any details, nor is there any picture of this set. I’m told he took a class during which he built the radio. He knew the trick of placing the headphone in a crystal bowl, which would amplify the sound enough to allow multiple people to listen. Chances are, the sounds of WLB, or perhaps WLAG, were what the assembled group could hear.

The flag being raised at Vera Cruz, 1914. From Wikipedia.

A hundred years ago, the wireless had unquestionably established itself as one of the tools of war. On this day in 1914, the Mexican Port of Veracruz was under American occupation after three days of fierce fighting under the command of Admiral Frank Friday Fletcher.  The invasion was a response to the arrival of arms bound for Mexico City and “El Usurpador”, President Victoriano Huerta, who was subject to a U.S. arms embargo. The arms were originally thought to have been provided by the German government, but actually originated from the Remington Arms Company in the U.S. and had been sourced by American financier John Wesley De Kay.

The episode is an early case of the role that the wireless telegraph was now playing in war. In the early morning hours of April 21, the American Consul in Vera Cruz, William Canada, sent an urgent cable to Washington reporting that the German ship carrying the arms was in the harbor and its arrival was imminent.  The cable reported that approach of the German vessel and the fact that locomotives and cars were ready to rush the arms to Mexico City.  Secretary of State William Jennings Bryan received the cable at 4:00 in the morning and phoned President Wilson’s private secretary, Joseph Tumulty, who decided to awaken the President. Even though the White House servants were reluctant to do so, they agreed and the President came to the telephone.

At the same time, Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels phoned and was put on the same line. Daniels had received a wireless message from Admiral Fletcher that 250 machine guns along with 15 million rounds of ammunition would be landed from the vessel. The President listened in silence until Navy Secretary Daniels asked him “what shall we do?” “Tell Fletcher to seize the customs house” was the President’s reply. A few minutes later, a wireless was dispatched to Fletcher. He received the message at 10:00, and marines were on the ground an hour later.

You can read the wire reports in the Logan (Utah) Republican, where they appeared on April 25, 2014.

The wedding party (top) and listeners. From the Literary Digest.

92 years ago today, the Washington Herald of April 24, 1922, reports the wedding that same day of Miss Sarah Cockefair and Albert P. Schlafke, both of Brooklyn, N.Y.:

NEW YORK, April 23 – Three hundred thousand radio fans have received cordial invitations to the wedding of Miss Sarah Cockefair, a nurse at the Brooklyn Hospital, and Albert P. Schlafke, of Brooklyn, who will have the ceremony performed in the clouds above Curtiss Flying Field, on Long Island, tomorrow afternoon.

The minister will be Lieut. Melvin W. Maynard, winner of the transcontinental air race, sometimes known as the “Flying Parson,” and the witnesses will be a radio operator and Lieut. Maynard’s mechanician. The guests will include nearly everybody who owns a radio receiving set.

The airplane will take off at Mineola, Long Island, at 2 o’clock. The wedding service will take place immediately afterward, and the bride and bridegroom, with their genuine “sky pilot,” will start for Schenectady and Syracuse on a flying honeymoon.

This picture of the bride is from the Brooklyn Daily Eagle, April 25, 1922.

The wedding apparently took off without a hitch, and was reported elsewhere, including Aerial Age Weekly and the Literary Digest for May 27, 1922, According to the Brooklyn Daily Eagle,  Mr. Schlafke was the athletic director of the Veterans Mountain Camp at Tupper’s Lake, New York. According to the Literary Digest account, the flight was made under the auspices of the American Legion as part of its campaign on behalf of the proposed Soldiers’ Mountain Home. Flying Parson Lt. Maynard spoke about the home, which would provide care to members suffering from ailments requiring pure mountain air. One of the witnesses was Miss Jeanette Vreeland, who performed a number of vocal solos to the couple and to the radio audience below.

Sadly, there’s a grave in a Brooklyn cemetery for one Sarah Schlafke,who died less than a year later in February 1923. According to the Social Security Death Index, one Albert Schlafke, born on August 21, 1891, with a Social Security Number issued in New York, died in Colorado Springs, Colorado, in 1965.