In the late 19th century the first radio, or wireless was created, it came about, due to recent technology advancements. An Italian inventor, a man named Guglielmo Marconi, developed the wireless technology to help make the radio possible. Shortly after, Frank Conrad, an engineer for Westinghouse, set up the first radio station. He began broadcasting from his home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He radio cast high school music groups, phonograph records, and scores of the popular baseball games. After three years of radios being on the market, there were now about 600 licensed broadcasting stations and more than 600,000 radio sets (Lapsansky-Werner; “Radio Fever”). The founder of Radio Corp. of America, David Sarnoff, is acclaimed to have made the wireless, and put it into everyday American life. Sarnoff sought the radio as a household appliance. Although, the recent increase of popularity to the radio, many did not like this advancement of technology. They saw it as a “technological manifestation of society’s ills, a symbol of modernity and creeping consumerism as well as a threat to traditional family values” ("History: 1920s"). The wireless industry also clashed with newspapers, causing competition, as they both presented daily information and entertainment from the comfort of people's homes. But that did not stop the progression of technology to come.
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This primary document is the cover page from a newspaper article dating back to March 1926. This write-up by E. E. Free, explains how people felt toward the new wireless technology. Many felt that it was "amusing, but virtually useless", and "morally corrupting of the American mind.” While others saw this new invention as an effective way to communicate to their community. Mr. Free also connected the radio back to all of the ground breaking inventions before, like the cotton gin, the telephone and localmotive and took what those inventions had done for civilization and predicted what the radio will do for the future. All in all the basis of this article was to put out the people's thoughts on the radio, and how the radio will affect what's to come in futures time.