September 24, 1908. West Allis, Wisconsin. "Taft crowd at Allis-Chalmers works." Audience for William Taft, speaking from the platform of his train at the Allis- Chalmers yards. View full size. 5x7 glass negative, G.G. Bain Collection.
Submitted by robcat2075 on Fri, 02/15/2008 - 1:13am.
Yeah, I've always wondered how orators did it before amplification.
I recall seeing a movie about an early Olympics and the stadium announcer worked from a platform that had three huge megaphones emanating from the point where his mouth was. But hard to imagine a presidential candidate using such a thing.
I always wonder in scenes like this whether many people in the large audience could actually hear the speaker (or see him very well). I suppose Taft could have been using some sort of megaphone or bullhorn? But even so. ... And what about before electricity? Maybe those speakers could "project" in an enclosed space, but it would have been hard to be heard outdoors, I'd think.
A huge crowd and there appears to be one, possibly two women (there's a hat behind one of the men to the left of one obvious women that doesn't exactly look like something a man would wear) and probably as many African-American men. A bit of a reminder of how far we've come in a hundred years.
[Good observation. But who's Visbily? And why didn't he show up? - Dave]
