Today, we tend to take radio for granted; it is one of many ways to hear music or news or sports. But in 1922, radio was unique: it was the first mass medium to take people to an event in real time, and listeners were amazed by it.
While radio’s proponents and detractors debated, it was becoming more apparent that radio was having an impact on daily life.
- In a 1924 article in Scientific American, Austin C. Lescarboura observed that radio made people more conscious about what time it was, since they didn’t want to miss their favorite programs.
Meanwhile, a few universities decided to try their hand at broadcasting educational talks, and they began collaborating with local radio stations.
- As early as April 1922, Tufts College (today Tufts University) in Medford, Massachusetts, utilized greater Boston station WGI to broadcast a series of lectures from Tufts professors.
There was still some debate about how much impact these programs were having but even those who had been skeptical had to admit that radio now played an important role in education—not as a substitute for good teachers, but as “a very effective supplement to school instruction.” And if used wisely, as Ben H. Darrow of the Ohio School of the Air advised in 1929, radio, television, and future technologies would serve “…not to distract, but to energize study, to motivate, to add joy to the journey.”
