Hello, Everybody!: The Dawn of American Radio - Hardcover

Rudel, Anthony J.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 015101275X ISBN 13: 9780151012756

Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2008

Synopsis

Long before the internet, another young technology was transformed--with help from a colorful collection of eccentrics and visionaries--into a mass medium with the power to connect millions of people.

When amateur enthusiasts began sending fuzzy signals from their garages and rooftops, radio broadcasting was born. Sensing the medium's potential, snake-oil salesmen and preachers took to the air, at once setting early standards for radio programming and making bedlam of the airwaves. Into the chaos stepped a young secretary of commerce, Herbert Hoover, whose passion for organization guided the technology's growth. When a charismatic bandleader named Rudy Vallee created the first on-air variety show and America elected its first true radio president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, radio had arrived.

With clarity, humor, and an eye for outsized characters forgotten by polite history, Anthony Rudel tells the story of the boisterous years when radio took its place in the nation's living room and forever changed American politics, journalism, and entertainment.

About this title

About the Authors

ANTHONY RUDEL has spent his professional life in radio, including ten years on the air, as well as stints as vice president of programming for WQXR in New York and SW Radio Networks. He now consults for radio stations across the country. He is the author of the novel Imagining Don Giovanni and two books on classical music. He lives in Chappaqua, New York.

ANTHONY RUDEL has spent his professional life in radio, including ten years on the air, as well as stints as vice president of programming for WQXR in New York and SW Radio Networks. The author of the novel Imagining Don Giovanni and two books on classical music, he now consults for radio stations across the country and lives in Chappaqua, New York.

From the Back Cover

"Living in this world of 24/7 communication, where it is vitually impossible to avoid being in touch, where information and entertainment continuously stream at us, it s hard to fathom that less than a century ago the very idea of sound traveling through walls into people s homes must have seemed like some wild science fiction ? But that s how it began; radio provided the formidable foundation for all of the electronic mass media that followed. As with the Internet, radio s growth was incredibly swift, and the reaction to these two communication industries was quite similar: intrigue, dismissal, and acceptance, until finally each medium came to dominate its respective time."-- From Hello, Everybody!

"One of the many reasons I love radio is its tolerance for eccentricity. What I learned from Hello, Everybody! is the origin of this eccentricity: It turns out that American radio is descended from wonderful, oddball radio pioneers of all shapes and sizes, a group who contributed mightily to the rich texture of the medium. Rudel is much more than a radio aficionado, he is a master storyteller." David Brancaccio, host, NOW on PBS.

From the Inside Flap

Long before the internet, another young technology was transformed--with help from a colorful collection of eccentrics and visionaries--into a mass medium with the power to connect millions of people.

When amateur enthusiasts began sending fuzzy signals from their garages and rooftops, radio broadcasting was born. Sensing the medium's potential, snake-oil salesmen and preachers built powerful, unregulated stations, at once setting early standards for radio programming and making a bedlam of the airwaves. Into the chaos stepped a young secretary of commerce, Herbert Hoover, whose passion for organization guided radio's growth. By the time a charismatic bandleader named Rudy Vallee created the first on-air variety show and America elected its first true radio president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the nation was firmly glued to its radio set.

With clarity, humor, and an eye for outsized characters overlooked by polite history, Anthony Rudel tells the story of the boisterous years when radio took its place in the nation's living room and forever changed American politics, journalism, religion, and entertainment.

Edition details

• Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
• Publication date: 2008
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 015101275X
• ISBN 13: 9780151012756
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 399