Home » Search

Article, Collections and Site Search

Research And Dr. Langmuir
Mr. Hawkins, who was born in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, in 1877, went to the General Electric Company in 1903 and was executive engineer of its research laboratory from 1912 to 1945. The following passages comment interestingly on some of the scientists whose work helped to make radio possible. The term “research” has been used to cover a multitude of activities but in General Electric it...
[Stories]
Dr. Conrad Founds Kdka
A pioneer amateur operator as well as an able engineer in the radio field, Mr. Little was a Signal Corps second lieutenant, assigned to the Bureau of Standards, when his story begins. My introduction to Westinghouse and Dr. Frank Conrad occurred in this way. While I was at the Bureau of Standards in late 1917, Westinghouse received a contract from the Signal Corps for, I believe, 75 small...
[Stories]
Radio Gets A Policeman
In the years immediately following the First World War, I had a boy who, like all boys of that period, had gone daft on wireless; and the house was cluttered with the apparatus which he had assembled. It was demanded of me that I listen in on his crystal set, which I did, so I had some interest in wireless before I became secretary of commerce.On January 15, 1921, some six weeks prior to my...
[Stories]
A Young Man Named Sarnoff
A long-time executive of the General Electric Company who became associated with its broadcasting activities just before the pioneer G. E. station, WGY, went on the air in February, 1922, Mr. Lang tells how he and his company got to know a young man named Sarnoff. In the summer of 1920, I was assigned with an associate to audit the newly formed Radio Corporation of America. I shall...
[Stories]
How CBS Got Its Start
To Arthur Judson, well-known manager in the field of music, the new field of radio presented a challenge and an opportunity. The results were both explosive and unexpected.Along about 1920 or 1922, I noticed my son fooling around with some gadgets. He told me with great glee that it was a radio machine. I didn’t believe in it much then.At that time, the First World War was over. There had been,...
[Stories]
Mr. Edison Didn’t Like It
A pioneer announcer and program manager who has been associated with New York broadcasting for many years recalls an incident about Thomas A. Edison. At the time, in 1921, he was doing the talking, such as there was, over WJZ, first New York area station. One day, when we were thoroughly tired of talking endlessly into this telephone microphone, I got an idea. So I went up to see my old...
[Stories]
Amos’n Andy and the KKK
Correll and Gosden—later to become famous as Amos ’n Andy—were originally song pluggers in Chicago. They originated the first of the strip programs that gained wide recognition, a black-faced act which was broadcast from the Edgewater Beach station, WEBH, a station partly owned by the Chicago Herald-Examiner. The success of the act—called Sam and Henry at the time—prompted the station manager,...
[Stories]
News And News Interpretation
(This resumes Mr. Kaltenborn’s recollections.) I was the first person to interpret news on the air. No one else had tried it. Not until 1923 was there any regular reporting of news, much less any attempt to interpret news. All the news services were then very jealous that their material should not be used on the air, and this was one factor in discouraging regular news broadcasts. The...
[Stories]
Loud Voices In The Forum
(This continues Mr. Bryson’s recollections.) After I had been in New York about a year—I think it was about 1935—George Denny of the Town Hall got the idea of the Town Meeting of the Air . It was a great forward step in radio. Every other proposal for free-for-all political discussion on radio had been met with jeers by the powers that be—it wasn’t safe, it couldn’t be done, and so on...
[Stories]
A Little Calculation For Lee De Forest
In the summer of my junior year at Purdue University, I learned that there was a job open in Chicago for a young man who would be willing to work at $10 a week on a magazine called The Western Electrician . I went to Chicago and took the job. That was in the summer of 1907. When I opened up the desk which they assigned to me, I found in it a number of papers of one Lee De Forest. Lee De Forest...
[Stories]
Reading, Writing And History
The Civil War: the Truth and the Legend Floating Palaces Too Many Indians Camp Meeting Days
[Stories]
The Civil War: The Truth And The Legend
The final truth of history is an evasive and a many-sided thing. It is what really happened, and it is what men have thought really happened; it is what men did, and the emotions that moved them while they were doing it; it is the hard facts that lie under the gloss of romance, and it is also the gloss itself—for the act of dreaming can be as important as the thing dreamed of. It is infinitely...
[Stories]
Floating Palaces
This wonderfully entertaining account of the most remarkable of all coastal steamboat lines was first published in 1937, the year in which the line, then 91, suddenly stopped running. Now Mr. McAdam, unofficial historian of the Fall River Line, has revised and enlarged the rare early edition. There are many more pictures and the narrative has been brought down to the present, all with charm...
[Stories]
Too Many Indians
Few battles in American history have been more extensively analyzed and described than the tragic engagement on the Little Big Horn River in Montana, where George Armstrong Custer and five troops of the 7th Cavalry were killed. All of the evidence is in, apparently; the archives have been combed with painstaking thoroughness, and seemingly every human being who was within miles of the place at...
[Stories]
Camp Meeting Days
The old-time frontier camp meeting has had a bad press, in our generation. It is usually held up as a horrible example of the emotional excesses of a crude people whose religious impulses were all tangled up with sex hunger, and amateur psychologists have had a field day with it. Balance is restored by Charles A. Johnson, with his sympathetic and discerning The Frontier Camp Meeting . Mr....
[Stories]
Ghost Writer To Daniel Boone
Daniel Boone’s position in the pantheon of American heroes is due probably to merit and certainly to good fortune. The former has been questioned by a few historians; but the latter, although not often recognized explicitly, has never been denied. Although practically an illiterate, Boone told the story of his adventures in Chateaubriand-like prose to Americans and Europeans alike almost as soon...
[Stories]
The Mills of Early America
While the antiquarian still coos over many a useless relic of the past, the American miller and his mill have often been forgotten. Like the farmer and the barn builder, his name is seldom recorded; but his place in the fabric of our history is distinct. While the antiquarian still coos over many a useless relic of the past, the American miller and his mill have often been forgotten. Like...
[Stories]
Reading, Writing And History
The Lower Depths Debt to the Immigrant Leader of a Lost Cause Men, Not Laws
[Stories]
The Lower Depths
Perhaps one of the most valuable extra dividends of history is the dawning knowledge that things are never quite as bad as they seem to be. Perhaps there is a toughness of fiber in people that enables them to stand ever so much more than rational judgment would suggest as the maximum. It may even be that our perennial American optimism is sometimes justified in spite of all logic. For any...
[Stories]
Debt To The Immigrant
In a sense, all of us are immigrants. Our roots go back beyond the water; our fathers, or our ultimate great-grandfathers, once took the long chance, got on a ship, and came to the New World. So what comes of it all? What sort of nation do we have, how has the fact that our roots go beyond the sea affected what has been done in this country? It is always good to get a fresh point of view,...
[Stories]
Leader Of A Lost Cause
The one great attempt which we have made in our history to turn our backs on the values which all of this uprooting brought us, and to swim upstream against the principal current in American life, was unquestionably the attempt to create an independent nation out of the southern Confederacy. It was an attempt made by high-minded men who were actuated by the best of motives, and it was doomed to...
[Stories]
Men, Not Laws
Those who relished the impish irreverence of Thurman Arnold, whose books, The Symbols of Government and The Folklore of Capitalism , strewed the intellectual landscape with the deflated catch-phrases and shattered shibboleths of politics, will enjoy equally the latest work of another college professor, Fred Rodell of Yale, whose attitude toward the Supreme Court seeks the same level of good...
[Stories]
Henry Adams’ Prophecy
Henry Adams was in London in 1862 when the depredations of the Merrimac in Hampton Roads proved the superiority of ironclad warships. To his brother Charles, an officer in the Union Army, Adams wrote:” Only a fortnight ago they discovered that their whole wooden navy was useless . . . I don’t think as yet they have dared to look their position in the face. People begin to talk vaguely about...
[Stories]
The Drive for Speed At Sea
There never were more lovely sailing ships than the wondrous clipper ships. They stormed about the seaways of the world, perfections of sailing grace and beauty, exemplifying man’s ability, when he wished, to develop grace in his service—even the strictly utilitarian service of carrying his goods at sea. Under their clouds of gloriously symmetrical sails, they looked the creations of some master...
[Stories]
Quiet Earth, Big Sky
 I am often tempted to believe that I grew up on a gun-toting frontier. This temptation I trace to a stagecoach ride in the spring of 1914, and a cowpuncher named Buck Murphy.The stagecoach ran from Gull Lake, Saskatchewan, on the main line of the Canadian Pacific, to Eastend, sixty miles southwest in the valley of the Frenchman. Steel from Swift Current already reached to Eastend, but...
[Stories]
Uncle Tom, The Theater And Mrs. Stowe
 In 1893, an itinerant “Tommer” with John Shea’s troupe wrote to a friend back East: “Since we struck Illinois our business has been big. We now have the long green laid aside, whereas when we were at Cairo the silver was easily counted. Bessie and Lulu are doing splendid work in brass, and Mrs. Shea is becoming a good tuba player. Barney, the donkey, is the big attraction on parade; his...
[Stories]
In Defense Of the Victorian House
The architecture of the first Industrial Age, which we have labeled “Victorian” for want of a better name, has long been in total disrepute. Respectable professors and accredited historians of U. S. architecture lapse into shocked silence at the end of the Greek Revival. They mumble about “disintegration of taste” and a “reign of horror” in a footnote, briefly recover their breath to laud...
[Stories]
A Portfolio Of Victorian Architecture
Colonial houses are rarely called “dark” although their windows are tiny, glass being then a rare luxury. In the Nineteenth Century, glass had become a factory-made staple and the Victorian house has large windows and plenty of them. It is true that they were barricaded by a fivefold layer of shutters, blinds, muslin curtains, velvet drapes and tasseled valances (“lambrequins”) but most of...
[Stories]
Lord Liverpool And the United States
When Jean Baptiste Isabey made his preliminary sketch for a painting of the Congress of Vienna, he imparted an incongruous air of romanticism to his little group of leading personalities. When Jean Baptiste Isabey made his preliminary sketch for a painting of the Congress of Vienna, he imparted an incongruous air of romanticism to his little group of leading personalities.As far as posture...
[Stories]
Martyr For A Free Press
There have been two downright attempts by government to curb freedom of the press in America since Plymouth Rock. The first took place when John Peter Zenger, a New York publisher, was jailed in 1735 for criticizing the British colonial governor, but through a brilliant defense by Andrew Hamilton, a salty old Philadelphia lawyer, was acquitted. In the second instance, 63 years later under our own...
[Stories]
Death On The Dark River
Late in April of 1865, the Mississippi stood at flood stage. Four years of war had ruined many levees and dikes, and in the lower reaches of the river the foaming water was over the banks for miles. But in the towns and cities of the lower valley the high water was only an incident, and the dominant feeling was one of relief. For the Civil War at last was ended.There would be no more fighting, no...
[Stories]
The Primitive and the Park
 In the summer of the year 1864, a white-haired man of 69, gentle in appearance and reflective in manner, spent many days on the benches of Central Park in New York, a penny notebook and a box of water-color paints spread out on his lap. Far to the south Atlanta smoked in ruins, but in the mind of the artist, a retired Pennsylvania German carpenter named Lewis Miller, destruction was part of...
[Stories]
The Giants of American Conservatism
The swing to conservatism in American politics and culture is one of the most remarkable facts of our age. The signs of this conservatism are all about us. After generations of exile from respectability, the word itself has been welcomed home with cheers by men who, a few short years ago, would sooner have been called arsonists than conservatives. Politicians, columnists, businessmen, and editors...
[Stories]
Palmetto Fort, Palmetto Flag
 Even for those not primarily interested in the colorful but complicated art of heraldry, the great seal of the sovereign state of South Carolina is worth studying. Centered within it is a large palmetto tree—just such a tree as you see in luxuriant reality all through the low country and in iron effigy in the capitol grounds at Columbia; beneath its roots lies the trunk of a giant oak,...
[Stories]
The Fascinating Memoirs Of A Civil War Reporter
As a newspaper correspondent with the Union armies in the Civil War, Sylvanus Cadwallader occupied a position of privilege such as few journalists have enjoyed before or since. He had orders from General Grant permitting him to pass any lines at any hour of the day or night and to commandeer any transportation, up to and including an Army transport, for his personal use. Cadwallader’s...
[Stories]
Three Years With Grant
During the forepart of 1862 I was city editor of the Milwaukee Daily News, badly broken down in health, and seeking some less exhausting occupation. The following Special Order from Gen. Grant commanding the Department of the Tennessee, to Gen. Sherman, commanding the District of Memphis, afforded me the first opportunity for doing so: August 8th 1862. General: — Herewith I send you an...
[Stories]
Outside Vicksburg
Early in 1863 Grant came down to take personal charge of the operations against Vicksburg. Various expedients were tried. Upstream from the fortress there was a network of bayous and backwaters leading into the Yazoo River, which flows into the Mississippi just above Vicksburg, and two separate amphibious expeditions were sent into that tangled area in an effort to come down on Vicksburg from the...
[Stories]
The General And The Bottle
We were constantly receiving news that Gen. Johnston was advancing to raise the siege. Gen. Frank P. Blair made a reconnaissance in force for fifty miles without encountering any Confederate troops. Reinforcements began to arrive from the north. On the third of June Gen. [Nathan] Kimball’s brigade from Hurlbut’s Command at Memphis arrived and pushed out ten or twelve miles northeast of Haynes’...
[Stories]
In The Wilderness
[Vicksburg fell on July 4, 1863. Later, Grant was given control over all western operations, won the great Battle of Chattanooga in the fall of the year, and in the spring of 1864 was made lieutenant-general in command of all the Union armies. Cadwallader, having given up his Chicago connection, in that spring was retained by James Gordon Bennett of the New York Herald, and at the beginning...
[Stories]
A Rude Reception
Gen. Grant having decided to transfer his army to the James River, preparations began at once. . . . On Tuesday morning, June 14th, Warren crossed [the Chickahominy] at Long Bridge, with Hancock following him. Burnside and Wright crossed at Jones’ Bridge four miles below Long Bridge. The advance of the army reached the James before night, and commenced laying pontons immediately. The crossing was...
[Stories]
The Power Of A Woman
[The operations in front of Petersburg quickly developed into a stalemate, with both armies solidly entrenched. Direct assault was out of the question. Late in June, 1864, it was decided to dig a tunnel under a Confederate strongpoint at the center of the line, explode a mine there, and see if an infantry breakthrough could not be made after the explosion. The mining was entrusted to the 48th...
[Stories]
A Lincoln Family Visit
The months of January, February and March were devoid of much public interest till towards the close of the latter when a few exciting things took place. Generals Grant and Rawlins sent for their wives to spend a few weeks at City Point, and I thereupon sent for mine to visit me at the same time. They all arrived early in January, and passed an enjoyable time till a start was made on our final...
[Stories]
This Is Victory
Before it was fairly light on the morning of March 29th 1865, Meade, Ord and Sheridan had all broken camp, and the army was once more in motion. Sheridan’s cavalry, nine thousand strong reached Dinwiddie before dark, and camped for the night. On the morning of the 31st he held Five Forks, but was obliged to fall back temporarily. After breakfast on the 29th, Grant and most of the staff left...
[Stories]
Surrender At Appomattox
[Accompanying Grant and his escort as they sought to keep pace with the flying Union columns, Cadwallader sent dispatches to the Herald at every opportunity. On the morning of April 5 the party entered the dilapidated village of Nottaway Court House.] While Grant was viewing the place a staff officer arrived with dispatches from Sheridan, stating that he had captured a large number of...
[Stories]
America's Oddest Election
Just six months before the presidential election of November 1860 and only days after winning his party’s nomination, Abraham Lincoln received some stunning advice from one of his chief supporters, William Cullen Bryant. The influential editor of the pro-Republican New York Evening Post beseeched him to “make no speeches, write no letters as a candidate, enter into no pledges, make no promises.”...
[Stories]
The First To Secede
At 7 p.m. on Thursday, December 20, 1860, some 170 men marched through the streets of Charleston, South Carolina, walking from St. Andrews Hall to a new meetinghouse amid the cheers of onlookers. Half of them were more than 50 years old, most well-known. More than 60 percent were planters who owned at least 20 slaves. Five had been state governors, four U.S. senators.Meeting in secret earlier...
[Stories]
The Naked Truth Of Battle
Editor’s note: Fresh from Williams College’s history program, the author entered World War II as a 24-year-old combat historian, earning four combat medals and a Bronze Star. He would go on to become a leading presidential historian, writing a two-volume biography of FDR, the second book of which won both the Pulitzer Prize and National Book Award. He has also written notable books on John F....
[Stories]
Frémont Steals California
In June 1842, Army topographer Lt. John Charles Frémont and 22 men left Chouteau’s Trading Post near present-day Kansas City to survey a wagon trail that would lead through the northern Rockies to Oregon. By August a small splinter group led by Frémont and his most famous scout, Kit Carson, snaked their way through the Wind River Mountains, determined to plant a flag on what was believed to be...
[Stories]
Picturing Alaska
In the summer of 1947, Ansel Adams and his 14-year-old son, Michael, undertook a six-week journey through Alaska that would have notable consequences for the history of conservation. Adams was already close to a household name for his masterful landscape photography, particularly the powerful shots of Yosemite Valley. A 1941 visit to Glacier National Park had sparked his interest in the north...
[Stories]
Those Magnificent Men: 100 Years Of Naval Aviation
On November 14, 1910, a professional “aviationist” named Eugene Ely stood by his plane on a temporary platform built over the foredeck of the USS Birmingham, a scout cruiser moored at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. On this rainy day, the 24-year-old pilot proposed to be the first man to fly an “aeroplane” from a ship at sea, seven years after the Wright Brothers’ initial flight.Designed by Glenn H....
[Stories]