On March 4, 1933, Americans huddled around radios in their
homes to hear Franklin D. Roosevelt utter the famous words, “… the only thing
we have to fear is … fear itself …” during his 20-minute inaugural address as
the 32nd president.
Only 30 years earlier the technology inside what would be
called the “radio” was being transformed into a device that would change the
way people around the world consumed news and were entertained.
With nothing but a voice being piped through speakers and a
listener’s imagination, radio is still considered by some today as a preferable
medium for storytelling over anything you’d see on a movie or television
screen.
Paying homage to the history of radio, Salt Lake Community
College is displaying 30 pieces from its varied collection of old radios and
electronics numbering in the hundreds. The public is invited to view the
display at SLCC’s South City Campus, 1575 South State Street, Salt Lake City,
until September 1.
“In my classes students learn that media are changing and
distribution channels are evolving,” said SLCC Communications associate
professor Nick Burns. “And that includes history, from early colonial
newspapers to the rise of radio and TV, to now the web and beyond. This radio
collection solidifies for students the concrete history of mass media.”
The late P.R. McIntyre collected the radios from the 1920s
into the 1950s at his radio sales and service shop, Mac’s Radios. The
McIntyre’s family donated the collection to KSL Radio, where P.R. McIntyre also
worked, to Brigham Young University, which eventually turned it over to SLCC.
Most of the radios were manufactured between 1915 and 1950 and include brands
like General Electric, Philco, Victor, Atwater-Kent, Olympic, Motorola and
Crosley.
The collection also includes phonographs, television sets,
wire and tape recorders, headphones, old speakers, microphones and Dictaphones.
SLCC’s goal is to have a series of rotating exhibits that make the entire
McIntyre collection available for public viewing.
“I applaud SLCC’s dedication to preserving this
important part of media history,” Burns said. “I fear that not many colleges
would take this on, and for SLCC to have one of FDR’s Fireside Chat mics, well,
that’s pretty fantastic.”