History of Bay Area Radio Told through Photographs

Feb. 14, 2012 - PRLog -- New from Arcadia Publishing’s popular Images of America series is Bay Area Radio by John F. Schneider, in association with the California Historical Radio Society and its Bay Area Radio Museum. This pictorial history boasts a vast collection of vintage images and provides readers with a unique opportunity to reconnect with the history that shaped their community.

The San Francisco Bay Area was a key national radio-broadcasting center during the first three decades of commercial radio. In 1909, it was home to the very beginnings of the art and science of broadcasting, when Charles “Doc” Herrold began sending out weekly voice and music programs from his radio school in San Jose. Dozens of other radio pioneers soon followed.

In 1926, big broadcasting came to San Francisco when the newly formed National Broadcasting Company (NBC) established its West Coast headquarters on Sutter Street. Other national and regional networks soon set up their own broadcast production centers, and for the next 20 years, thousands of actors, musicians, announcers, and engineers were creating important programs that were heard on the West Coast as well as nationwide.

During World War II, San Francisco became the key collection center for Pacific war news, and bulletins received in San Francisco were quickly relayed to an anxious nation. Conversely, powerful shortwave stations broadcast war news and propaganda back to the Pacific and entertained American troops overseas.

Highlights of Bay Area Radio include:
•   The first radio broadcast station in the world was on the air in San Jose in 1912.
•   The first shortwave radio station on the West Coast broadcast from Treasure Island during the 1939 Golden Gate Exposition.
•   During World War II the forerunner of the Voice of America (VOA) broadcast to the Pacific from studios in the parking garage of the Mark Hopkins Hotel.

Available at area bookstores, independent retailers, and online retailers, or through Arcadia Publishing at (888)-313-2665 or www.arcadiapublishing.com.  

Arcadia Publishing is the leading publisher of local and regional history in the United States. Our mission is to make history accessible and meaningful through the publication of books on the heritage of America’s people and places. Have we done a book on your town? Visit www.arcadiapublishing.com.

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With more than 7,500 local history titles published to date, Arcadia Publishing is the leading publisher of local and regional history in the United States. Widely recognized sepia books feature hundreds of vintage historical images.