Books Related to this Topic
Archer, Gleason L. History of Radio to 1926. New York: Stratford Press Inc., 1938.
Aylesworth, Milton. “The National Magazine of the Air.” In The Radio Industry: The Story of Its Development, edited by Dr. Anton De Haas, 226 – 244. Chicago: A. W. Shaw, 1928.
Barnouw, Erik. Tower in Babel; a History of Broadcasting in the United States. V. 1-To 1933. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1966.
Benjamin, Louise. “Working It out Together: Radio Policy from Hoover to the Radio Act of 1927.” Journal of Broadcasting & Electronic Media 42 no. 2 (1998): 221–37.
Bray, Stephen D. “Harry Chandler.” In American Newspaper Journalists, 1926 – 1950, edited by Perry J. Ashley, 55-61. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 26. Vol. 26. Detroit: Gale, 1984.
Briggs, Asa. “Prediction and control: historical perspectives.” The Sociological Review 13, no. 1 (1965): 39-52.
Crane, Marie B. “The Development of Commercial Radio in San Diego to 1950.” Master’s thesis, San Diego State University, 1977.
Douglas, Susan J. Inventing American Broadcasting, 1899-1922. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.
Douglas, Susan J. Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004.
Jackaway, G. Media at war: Radio’s challenge to the newspapers, 1924-1939. Westport, Conn.: Praeger, 1995.
Koppes, Clayton R. “The social destiny of radio: Hope and disillusionment in the 1920s.” South Atlantic Quarterly 68, no. 3 (1969): 363-76.
Mander, Mary S. “Utopian Dimensions in the Public Debate on Broadcasting in the Twenties.” Journal of Communication Inquiry 12, no. 2 (1988): 71–88.
MacDonald, J. Fred. Don’t Touch That Dial. Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1979.
Patnode, Randall. “Friend, Foe, or Freeloader? Cooperation and Competition between Newspapers and Radio in the Early 1920s.” American Journalism 28 no. 1 (2011): 75–95.
Patnode, Randall. “Heralding Radio: The Social Construction of Broadcasting by Newspaper Specialty Sections, 1922–1926.” PhD dissertation, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1999.
Schmeckebier, Laurence Frederick. The Federal Radio Commission: Its History, Activities, and Organization. New York: AMS Press, 1974.
Smulyan, Susan. Selling Radio: The Commercialization of American Broadcasting 1920-1934. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1994.
Stamm, Michael. Sound Business: Newspapers, Radio, and the Politics of New Media. American Business, Politics, and Society. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2011.
Sterling, Christopher. “Newspaper Ownership of Broadcast Stations, 1920-68.” Journalism Quarterly 46, no 2 (1969): 227-254.
Vaughn, Stephen. “William Randolph Hearst (29 April 1863-14 August 1951).” In American Newspaper Journalists, 1901-1925, edited by Perry J. Ashley, 98-116. Dictionary of Literary Biography Vol. 25. Vol. 25. Detroit: Gale, 1984.
Explore Further
The American Radio History website contains a vast collection of different materials related to radio and television.
http://www.americanradiohistory.com/
The FRC was the precursor to the FCC. Commercial radio stations needed to apply to the FRC for a license to broadcast. The FRC did not have the power to refuse or revoke licenses until 1927. The first commercial broadcast stations appeared in 1920.
https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/radio-service-bulletins
While there are very few broadcasts from the 1920 that have survived, this site has a great collection of old time radio shows from later years.
https://archive.org/details/oldtimeradio
Becoming Modern: America in the 1920s is a set of primary sources curated by the National Humanities Center. These resources are great to use in the high school and middle school classroom.
http://americainclass.org/sources/becomingmodern/
Here is a unit plan the I created using the resources from the Becoming Modern: America in the 1920s classroom.
1920s Teaching Unit for High School
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1m4RuMSJiLYoKtp_3iHTx1CFbGkw5z-VzsIVj2yiyb7A/edit?usp=sharing