FW: 80th Anniversary of radio in the Whitehouse

["Hakim Madjid" <HMadjid@earthlink.net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: Donna Halper [mailto:dlh@donnahalper.com]
Sent: Monday, February 10, 2003 12:18 AM
To: Hakim Madjid
Subject: Re: 80th Anniversary of radio in the Whitehouse


Since my e-mails are still getting bounced, please forward this to the 
list.  Thanks.

>Hakim wrote--
>Maybe a radio historian like Donna can weigh in further on this.

Yes, I have the newspaper clipping about Harding getting a radio installed 
at the White House.  Except, the radio was installed in 1922, not 
1923.  Anyway, in those days, getting a radio was a big deal.  Some 
politicians were just beginning to use radio, and the newspapers were 
weighing in on who sounded natural over the airwaves and who sounded 
nervous...Here in Boston,  controversial Mayor James Michael Curley had 
already gone out to Medford Hillside to speak on WGI on several occasions 
in 1922.  And to show how things have changed, when Harding died suddenly 
in August of 1923, all the radio stations went off the air (!) during his 
funeral as a tribute to him.