Seeing the 'Wonder Machine' for the First Time... (Delineator, 1937)This is one of the most enjoyable early television articles: an eye-witness account of one the first T.V. broadcasts from the R.C.A. Building in New York City during the November of 1936. The viewing was set up strictly for members of the American press corps and the excitement of this one journalist clearly could not be contained:
"In the semi-darkness we sat in tense silence waiting to see the premiere demonstration of television...Television! What would it be like? I remembered how miraculous the first radios seemed...Suddenly, there in the lid of the wonder machine appeared the small but clear image of Betty Goodwin, television announcer, sent out on the air from the Empire State Building dome. Over intervening skyscrapers it had found its way, penetrating the thick walls of the RCA Building...Miss Goodwin introduced David Sarnoff, president of RCA and from the 7.5 by 10 inch screen he bowed and smiled..."
Television with All It's Possibilities (Stage Magazine, 1939)No one in 1939 would have imagined that television would be the sort of venue that would allow millions of strangers to see Tyra Banks get a breast exam, but that is the kind of institution it has become. "Stage" correspondent Alan Rinehart was astonished that so much dough was being invested in such a young industry, yet he recognized that T.V. was capable of much good, but was also capable of generating the kind of banality that we're used to.
"What then, will be the entertainment value of television?...What's to be the entertainment? Why should we tune in? Will we get more than we will on the radio?...The revolutionary idea about television is that the medium has been developed before the art. It's as if the piano had been invented before music, or paint and canvas before drawing."
Anticipating the Television Juggernaut (Stage Magazine, 1939)This 1939 article was written by a wise old sage who probably hadn't spent much time with a "television set" but recognized fully the tremor that it was likely to cause in the world of pop-culture:
"Of all the brats, legitimate and otherwise, sired of the entertainment business, the youngest, television, looks as if it would be the hardest to raise and to housebreak..."
Color Television: Hand Maiden to Art... (Art Digest, 1945)Attached you will read an editorial comment written by art critic and historian Clayton Boswell. Boswell articulately expressed the great hope that the art world had emotionally invested in the invention of color television:
"This is what the art world has been waiting for - in the meantime struggling with the futility of attempting to describe verbally visual objects over the air. Now art on the television will be on par footing with music. And what radio has done in spreading the appreciation of good music will be duplicated with fine art...Then indeed will Andrew Carnegie's dream of progress through education come true."
TELEVISION: God's Gift to Hollywood (Script, 1938)In 1938 it was clear to the ink-slinger who penned this two-pager that the Deity of the Electronic Impulse had created another gift for all humanity to enjoy and abuse: it was called TELEVISION - and it was clear to this writer, at least, that the natural home for this gift from On High should be Hollywood, California.
Television: The Hollywood Enigma (Photoplay, 1938)In his own charming and verbose way, culture critic Gilbert Seldes takes his time answering the question as to whether movies and radio will be shown the door by the television broadcast industry:
"Whenever people ask me whether television will take the place of the movies, I blush, pant rapidly, stammer, and finally manage to ask them if whether they think the automobile will ever take the place of the horse. To which they reply (if they reply at all) that the motor car has already taken the place of the horse, which is exactly what I want them to say...the car has replaced the horse; but even that was a long and tedious process."
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