It's obviously the Radio that is in focus in this photo, though; and my guess is therefore that it was taken when this device was still a novelty. Swedish Radio started broadcasting on 1st January, 1925, at 10:55 am. The very first program on the air was a church service live from a church in Stockholm, which could be heard by around 40.000 receivers. In the beginning, on weekdays, they only broadcasted like half an hour at noon + half an hour in the evening. However, in May 1925, a Radio Choir was also established to give radio concerts; and in September a children's program was started that came to last until 1972. (I remember it from my own childhood!) They also got started with broadcasting certain big sports events; and radio theatre (written especially for the radio).
In 1928, they started broadcasting "school radio" (educational programs); and introducing new music from gramophone records. In 1930, daily short "morning devotions". (Still going on! but I'm never up at 5:45 myself...) In 1932, the first political debate before an election could be heard on the radio. In 1933, they were broadcasting 8 hours per day. In April 1937, the number of radio licenses issued passed 1 million. (The total number of citizens in Sweden back then was around 6.2 million.)
I doubt that my grandparents' friends Evert and Anders were among the 40.000 to listen to the first radio broadcasts ever. But I guess they may have been among the first million to have one. (?) Just based on its very existence, I'd date this photo to the mid 1930s or so - i.e. while a radio was still not something you saw in each and every home. (The photographer is likely to be my grandfather Gustaf; and even if I can't swear to it, I can't recall having seen a radio in any early 1930s photo from my grandparents' own house.)
An interesting history of Swedish radio. The radio featured in your post is quite a handsome one. High quality to be sure.
ReplyDeleteGail, I'm surprised at the rather small size of it, as the ones I remember from my own early childhood (I was born 1955) were usually quite big - and the centerpiece of the living room, much as the TV came to be later.
DeleteThis had to be the early days of radio, when everyone sat around it rather than listening as they did household tasks. I grew up in the transition from radio (my grandmother loved radio soap operas) and television (on which my mother watched the daytime dramas). I got hooked on radio for the music in my teen years and still listen regularly despite video’s dominance these days.
ReplyDeleteAbout the same for me, Molly - except my mother had to make to with the radio as well, at least in my early childhood.
DeleteTalking about radio receivers from after WWII, I remember trying to fine-tune to a medium wave station you needed a very delicate touch of the dial. There were so many stations with almost similar wavelengths. Sweden, in this respect, was probably not much different from the Netherlands.
ReplyDeletePeter, I don't think the radios we had in my early childhood could receive more than the two Swedish radio channels that we had back then. Later on in my teens I got a small AM transistor radio on which I could also tune music from Radio Luxemburg, though.
DeleteYes, the days of radio were part of many people's lives...my father and his brothers learned how to make a crystal set to tune in to radio stations early in broadcasting. Not sure what the crystal actually was. I remember seeing the insides of old radios with all the vacuum tubes. They really got hot.
ReplyDeleteBarbara, I'm guessing that in my dad's teen years (in the 1940s) the family probably had proper radio.
DeleteThis was a perfect match for this radio theme. I love the two men's expressions. They seem startled and even suspicious that the radio is somehow about to do something dangerous, As a child of the television age I can remember when TV sets first offered color displays. Then came high-definition, followed by flatscreens, and recently smart TVs that stream 1001+ programs from around the world. At times I feel like my brain is overloaded with too much information. That's when I get the same expression on my face as Evert and Anders.
ReplyDelete