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December 6, 1923…First Presidential Speech On Radio

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Eyes Of A Generation.com


December 6, 1923…First Presidential Speech On Radio

The White House was brought fully into the modern age of communication when Calvin Coolidge (1923-1929) made the first presidential radio broadcast from 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue on this day in 1923. The next year, he made history again in by appearing in the first sound film of an American President.

During the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln (1861-1865) used a telegraph to keep in touch with his battlefield generals which was across the street from the White House at the War Department.

In 1877, President Rutherford B. Hayes (1877-1881) spoke on the telephone to the instrument’s inventor, Alexander Graham Bell. Two years later, Hayes had his own telephone in the White House, but the invention was so new that very few homes or offices in Washington had phones, so Hayes had few people to talk to. In fact, the president’s telephone number was “1”.

Men who were campaigning to be president used another invention, the phonograph. Recordings were made of campaign speeches, to get the word out about a candidate and his political views before the election. In the presidential race of 1908, for instance, disks of William Howard Taft and William Jennings Bryan could be purchased and then played at a church, or other gathering place, in towns which these presidential candidates could not visit by train. The records would come with a photograph of the candidate, so voters knew what he looked like.

Compare the number of people presidents could reach before and after radio. President Andrew Jackson (1829-1837), a very popular leader, spoke to only 10,000 people at his inauguration. Less than one hundred years later, President Coolidge broadcast an address to 23 million radio listeners as his voice was carried through telephone lines across the nation.

No one knows exactly how many people saw George Washington on his carriage tours, but even if he saw 1,000 people every day lined up on the streets, or at ceremonies, only about 100,000 Americans would have seen him — and this was after three months of traveling! In just an instant, 23 million Americans heard Coolidge speak. Enjoy and share! -Bobby Ellerbee

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5puwTrLRhmw

The first presidential film with sound recording.

Source

4 responses to “December 6, 1923…First Presidential Speech On Radio”

  1. Michael Biel

    Although the title card clearly states that this was a deForest Phonofilm which was sound-on-film, Stanley Watkins at Western Electric had already been working on the system that became Vitaphone since 1922. And while Coolidge might have been the first president to have broadcast from the White House, Harding had broadcast from another location in 1922, and Woodrow Wilson, although not a serving president did a broadcast on Nov 10, 1923 from his home near the White House. That broadcast still exists.

  2. David Breneman

    The DeForest system was sound-on-film, the first optical soundtrack. Warners’ Vitaphone system recorded sound on disk. Don’t forget the first president to appear on television – Herbert Hoover in 1927 – although he was only Secretary of Commerce at the time. http://www.corp.att.com/history/television/photo_hoover.html

  3. Steve Dichter

    Assume this was recorded to a disc and synched up to the film. Certainly pre dates the Warner Bros early sound on film.

  4. Gary Lewi

    you have become such an important connection to our communications history – thank you.

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