NHD Field Trip Transcript

2. National Capital Radio and Television Museum: Broadcasting History

Cathy Gorn: Everybody on the bus. We're going on an NHD Field Trip. You're listening to NHD Field Trip, a podcast from National History Day. I'm Cathy Gorn. Take a break from your school work or your NHD project research and join me now as we engage with some really interesting people and places.

Sherise Malachi: Sometimes I come he and I'll bring my son if I need to run in when the museum is closed and I say to myself, "How ... Who created and had the genius enough to provide the information out of this box?"

Cathy Gorn: There's a really cool museum in Prince George's County, just outside the beltway of Washington, D.C. Compared to the Smithsonian's august buildings that line the national mall about 20 miles west of here, this museum in Maryland is quite unassuming. In fact, save for the signs on either end of its curving driveway, you wouldn't know what treasures were found within this rather modest, white-trimmed red farmhouse. Well, the signs say that this is the National Capital Radio and Television Museum and this place boasts a collection of technology that reshaped the way people communicate. Paying a visit to my friends here seemed an appropriate way to highlight another example of this year's NHD theme, Communication in History: The Key to Understanding. Not to mention the fact that I serve on the museum's board of trustees.

Sherise Malachi: The National Capital Radio and Television Museum is that place, is that safe space where children, adults, everyone of all ages not just in Prince George's County but throughout the entire state of Maryland and the greater Washington, D.C. region, can come to learn the history and the importance of radio and television in our society.

Cathy Gorn: That's Sherise Malachi, the executive director of the museum. I had the pleasure of meeting with her and the museum's curator, Brian Belanger, to talk about the mission, collection and the ongoing work of this very special place. I hope this episode of NHD Field Trip helps to explain the power of this place and the window to history, or more accurately, the screens and speakers to history, within.

Brian Belanger: We're just trying to help people understand the evolution of radio and TV mainly in American homes. How did we get to where we are today with all of the things that have happened in between?

Cathy Gorn: Oh, is that all? Well, what Brian just said in under 10 seconds provides an overview for a collection of devices that represents and tells the story of a revolution in communications technology. On this episode of NHD Field Trip, we're going to jump back in time to explore how radio and television launched what we understand today as mass communication. We'll examine how the collection of radios and TVs that are featured here at the National Capital Radio and Television Museum ... how they represent a powerful synthesis of science, technology, entertainment, news, and for better or worse, advertising and propaganda. Along the way, we'll enjoy a few sounds from the golden age of radio. Finally, and most importantly, we'll consider how the radios and TVs of the early to mid-20th century actually laid the groundwork for subsequent technologies and the evermore powerful means by which people communicate today, and the impact that broadcast communication has had on the course of human events. So stay tuned. Okay, before we jump right into the history of mass communication, let me tell you a little bit more about the National Capital Radio and Television Museum. The museum is located inside a historic two-story farmhouse in Bowie, Maryland. That's about a half hour outside of D.C. and as you may have guessed from its name, it's filled with countless classic and vintage radios and televisions. This place is a temple of technology.

Brian Belanger: It's what some people would call visual candy. We have a lot of beautiful radios that are in art deco style cabinets that ... I