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Winter 1942. Washington, D.C. "Young niece of Jewel Mazique, worker at the Library of Congress, who lives with her aunt." First in a series by John Collier for the Office of War Information. View full size.
I miss the larger desk top radios. Now days radios are so small the tuner dial is hard to navigate.
And as I saw this photo, I was listening to the Andrews Sisters singing that very song as the station did a farewell to Patty Andrews.
I can't tell you what she's listening to, but the time is 9:35 p.m. (because she has her bedside lamp on). The radio is set to around 980 Kilocycles which in the Washington Market was WRC in 1941. At the time WRC was one of the mainstays of the NBC Red Network.
Red Network shows between 9:30 and 10:00 p.m. for the 1942-43 were
Sundays: The American Album of Familiar Music
Mondays: Dr. I.Q.
Tuesdays: Fibber McGee & Molly
Wednesdays: Mr. District Attorney
Thursday: Bing Crosby
Friday: Plantation Party
Saturday: Can You Top This?
The Emerson radio is a model 400 Aristocrat -- a bit more elegant than the model 400 Patriot which had a red-white-blue color scheme and stars on the knobs. The case was advertised to be made of "Opalon" which was Monsanto's trade name for their cast phenolic resin similar to Catalin (trademark of the American Catalin Corporation.) I can find very little reference to Opalon other than the image of a Monsanto ad at one vintage radio web site.
That Emerson radio is a New York model. The cabinet is made of Catalin. Catalin was a cast polymer, and is very sought-after by collectors. Depending on what color this one is (it appears to be marbled yellow), it is worth about $1,000 today.
[Edit]: I was looking at a website to determine what model it was, and it said "New York," but apparently that just referred to place of manufacture. It's actually a Model 400, made in 1940.
Funny, I used to live at my aunt's for a while each summer. There was also an Emerson radio in each of my aunt's guest bedrooms.
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