Just finished Anthony Rudel's
Hello, Everybody!: The Dawn of American Radio, a fascinating history of the rise of radio in the '20s and '30s. Rudel uses the stories of a variety of individuals (quacks, bureaucrats, entertainers, politicians, announcers, and authentic visionaries) to depict the free-for-all that early radio, in both the technological and entrepreneurial realms, really was.
The parallels of radio's rapid dominance of the American cultural scene with the more recent i-revolution are apparent throughout, but what sells the book are the stories of the likes of Rudy Vallee, Herbert Hoover, Fr. Charles Coughlin, and "Doctor" John R. Brinkley. Whatever most of us know of any of them will be deeply enriched by Rudel's clear presentation of their stories.
Well researched and plotted, this book is quite a nice read.
Yesterday, for my morning radio show, I encouraged as many members of the "Frank, Gil and Friends" distribution list to log on during the show as possible to demonstrate to the student members of WFCS, the radio station of CCSU, how a little leg work in building audiences could produce results. An anomaly indeed!
