{"id":10898,"date":"2014-09-24T11:35:10","date_gmt":"2014-09-24T15:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/?p=10898"},"modified":"2014-09-24T11:35:10","modified_gmt":"2014-09-24T15:35:10","slug":"1930s-refrigerator-had-built-in-radio","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/2014\/09\/1930s-refrigerator-had-built-in-radio\/","title":{"rendered":"1930s refrigerator had built-in radio"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many thanks to Andy Sennitt for sharing this <a title=\"Read the full article on Gizmodo\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gizmodo.com.au\/author\/matt-novak\/\" target=\"_blank\">fascinating piece of radio nostalgia<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/RefrigeratorRadio.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-10899\" src=\"http:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/RefrigeratorRadio.jpg\" alt=\"RefrigeratorRadio\" width=\"714\" height=\"612\" srcset=\"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/RefrigeratorRadio.jpg 714w, https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/RefrigeratorRadio-300x257.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 714px) 100vw, 714px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Gizmodo!\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gizmodo.com.au\/author\/matt-novak\/\" target=\"_blank\">Gizmodo<\/a> columnist, Matt Novak, writes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/notjessewalker\/status\/514099317083082753\">Jesse Walker<\/a>, author of the book <em><a title=\"Rebels on the Air\" href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0814793827\/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=211189&amp;creative=373489&amp;creativeASIN=0814793827&amp;link_code=as3&amp;tag=swlcom01-20&amp;linkId=QDKKYLHSU5FXSKBR\" target=\"_blank\">Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America<\/a><\/em>, pointed me to this rather novel invention from 1937 \u2014 the refrigerator-radio combination unit. This may seem like an odd marriage of tech, but it makes perfect sense when you realise that it in the 1930s it was becoming harder to sell new radios and much easier to sell new fridges.<\/p>\n<p>Despite the Great Depression, America saw an explosion of mechanical refrigerator ownership during the 1930s. In 1930, just 8 per cent of American households had a fridge. By the end of the decade, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.psmag.com\/blogs\/time-machine\/the-rise-of-the-refrigerator-47924\/\">nearly half<\/a> of American homes had one.<\/p>\n<p>But the market for radios was pretty saturated in the late 1930s. Over 80 per cent of American households had a radio by the end of the decade. So radio set manufacturers tried to insert their products into new places that from the vantage point of the future, we can see didn\u2019t pan out (like refrigerators) and others that did (like cars).<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"Gizmodo\" href=\"http:\/\/www.gizmodo.com.au\/2014\/09\/the-1930s-refrigerator-radio-combo-that-never-quite-took-off\/\" target=\"_blank\">Continue reading on Gizmodo&#8230;<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many thanks to Andy Sennitt for sharing this fascinating piece of radio nostalgia: Gizmodo columnist, Matt Novak, writes: Jesse Walker, author of the book Rebels on the Air: An Alternative History of Radio in America, pointed me to this rather novel invention from 1937 \u2014 the refrigerator-radio combination unit. This may seem like an odd [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":15,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[373,3,305,288,26],"tags":[3269,1324,4094,4081,3268],"class_list":["post-10898","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-am","category-news","category-nostalgia","category-radio-history","category-radios","tag-fridge-radio","tag-gizmodo","tag-nostalgia","tag-radios","tag-refrigerator-radio"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pn3uc-2PM","jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10898","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/15"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10898"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10898\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10898"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10898"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/swling.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10898"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}