One Day in 1939

Arthur Godfrey, The Romance of Helen Trent, Our Gal Sunday, The Goldbergs, President Roosevelt’s Address to Congress, Amos and Andy, Joe E. Brown, Major Bowes, Louis Prima, and more all in a row!

This is a recording of a full broadcast day, remastered (from the National Archives transcript disks) by Joe Bevilacqua.

On Thursday, September 21st, 1939, radio station WJSV (CBS) in Washington, D.C., recorded their entire broadcast day — from sign on, to sign off.

This was before the advent of magnetic recording tape, so transcription disks were used. The overall quality of these disk recordings is good to excellent, except for a few spots of noticeable distortion and drop out.

This collection is the complete broadcast day of the Columbia Broadcasting System’s radio station WJSV AM, Washington, D.C. September, 21, 1939, was recorded in part because of President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s address to Congress. This twenty-fifth special session speech covered FDR’s plans to change existing neutrality laws in light of the coming European war.

You will hear everything as it was the day it was recorded — that includes the pops and crackles, the station breaks, and the technical difficulties, along with all the music, comedy, drama, soap operas, a quiz show, war news, baseball, and advertisements that were aired on September 21st, 1939.

Let this One Day in 1939 be your personal time machine, as you traveled back to those days when 15 cents would buy a hamburger, a six-pack of Coke costs a quarter, and the future was on display at the 1939 New York World’s Fair.