Regular readers of this blog know that the early days of television interest me. Why? Because I was born at the end of the 1950s and thus able to witness the evolution of television over the years.
I've written before about Mom and Dad's first TV (here). It was a Philco 4109 – a huge, heavy cabinet-style model that had to warm up. I'm sure Mom selected it because it fit in with her French Provincial design theme in the house (which I teased her about in later years as being somewhat incongruous as the choice of a woman of German heritage living in Lorain, Ohio).
Here's a photo of Dad standing next to that first television.
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| Dad and the TV circa 1955 |
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| "How do you turn this thing on?" she seems to be thinking. |
How long did my parents have it? They bought it in the early 1950s and had it in their first house. It made the move to their second house (which they built in the late 1950s) but I don't remember it coming with us to the third house (on Skyline Drive) in December 1965. So they had it for about twelve years.
Now for those people who liked to trade in their television for the latest model, then the ad for Harmon-Nielsen Company, would have been of interest. It ran in the Lorain Journal back on Feb. 24, 1954.
Note that RCA is the brand mentioned in the ad. Is the RCA brand still around today? It sure is, and it's still possible to buy an RCA television. Click here to visit the history page on the RCA corporate website. (Nipper, the dog mascot always shown memorably listening to "His Master's Voice," is still around too, on the home page.)
But the ad is amusing in some ways. The gimmick of showing only half of the man and woman's face is unusual and probably due to limitations of layout space. And I like the image on the TV screen of what's probably supposed to represent some Shakespearean actor.
I think they should have shown a wrestling match instead. Or a cowboy.
10 comments:
From what my mom told me, we got our first tv in 1952, a Philco, which I think was bought at Delis Bros. I remember that set well, standing in the corner of the living room, bringing in everything from Eisenhower to Ghoulardi to Merv Griffin, moving with us to four different addresses, finally giving up the ghost in 1967.
I remember as a child, as the set was turned off at the end of the day, trying to see how long I could make out the picture as it shrank into a dot, then vanished. I saw John Glenn ascend on that set, JFK's fatherless son giving a final salute, Adam West doing the Batusi, Ernie Anderson warning us that the movie he was about to show was such a stinker, we should all go to bed, all this and more.
Well, I 'm turning this screen off, and going back to bed; ' bye, y'all!
I loved the sign in the Harmon Nelson parking garage that read something to the effect that “above you is the greatest selection of furniture in Lorain County “.
I'm always amazed to see kids watching movies on hand-held devices. It took us how many years to get a screen that's big so I ain't going back to no small one.
We never had a console set. Ours went in the fireplace opening with the wire running up the chimbley to the antenna mounted upon it. Even though we lived in Pennsyltucky, we got 3, 5, and 8. Once we got a UHF add-on, with the blade-switch in the back of the set, we received 61 and 43, too.
I growed up will all the Cleveland channels!
"We now conclude our broadcast day..."
I recall the early tv days in 1948. I went with my Dad to the CES show in Chicago that year at the Palmer House hotel. They showed the first consumer tvs for sale in the country.I still have a stack of manufacture ads from that show.They are all long gone now and just exist in the TV Hall of Fame.IN 1949 IN Cleveland on Euclid Ave there was a store called Transvision where they sold build you own TV kits. It was a great time to visit your neighbor and watch their new TV.Exciting time for a 10 year old kid.Nice memories.
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My Grandparents had the first TV in our family and it was probably the late 1940s. It was similar to the Brady TV but had twin doors that swung shut. We never did get a TV when I lived at home, I had to wait until I married and moved out in 1968. I guess it made us do our homework better, since us kids are now a doctor, engineer, professor, minister (Doctor of Divinity) and IT company founder.
Grandma still had that TV when she passed in the 1980s and I am pretty sure it still worked. Shortly after I moved out Dad realized that they showed baseball games on TV and he finally bought one.
For a few years I had an older TV console like the ones shown above.I took out the old TV picture tube and put in a newer modern LED TV screen.It was the best of both worlds as I had a modern TV screen with crystal clear images and I still had the old vintage style cabinet.I only used it for a few years as it was still a small TV set as I along with everyone else is always on that quest of a bigger and better tv screen size.And that cabinet took up a lot of space when all you have to do today is just hang a TV on the wall like a photo.
I was an enthusiastic TV advocate as far back as I can remember. My folks had a TV when I was born in 1949. The model I remember from a few years later was in blonde wood, the fashion at the time, with a cloth grille, similar to the Brady TV. I would lay on the floor in front of that thing entranced. Because the choices were limited, we watched whatever came on. "Victory at Sea," Leonard Bernstein on classical music, "Wide, Wide World," etc. While there was a lot of Three Stooges time, I learned a lot, too. Back then, media was thought to have a social purpose.
The downside to today's televisions - what do you do with a 65-75 inch tv that no longer works? It doesn't fit into most vehicles and TV service guys that come to your house are a thing of the past. It's frowned upon to take it to the curb for whatever reasons. I guess you just shove it in the garage and let your heirs worry about it.
Not only that, but how do you put your Godzilla atop the set?
You mean King Kong, but I agree. We have lost valuable shelf space.
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