I recently came across a short , mute flick from 1922 calledEve ’s Wireless . Distributed by theBritish Pathecompany , the film supposedly show two women using a wireless phone . ostensibly this TV has beenmaking the roundsfor the past few years . Could it be an other demo of some futuristic technology ? I hate to be the Internet ’s smashed blanket , but no . It ’s not a fluid earpiece .
Rather than an early mobile phone , think of the box seat they ’re hold as an earlyWalkman ; because the two cleaning woman on the street do n’t have a telephone , but rather acrystal radio receiver . The confusion comes from the fact that the term “ wireless telephone ” was widely used in 1922 for what we but call “ radio ” today .
Two women from the 1922 film “ Eve ’s Wireless ” operating a portable crystal radio
The film opens with two charwoman walking down the street with an umbrella and a wireless in a box . An inter - title ticket ( the countersign that would appear in a understood movie to facilitate aid in narrative development and were sometimes known as “ letter cards ” ) explains that “ It ’s Eve ’s portable radio ‘ earphone — and wo n’t married man have a meter when he has to carry one ! ”
In the next shot the women approach a fire hydrant and sequester a earth conducting wire from the radio to the hydrant . Crystal radiocommunication do n’t need a might source ( like a battery ) because they derive their power from a long transmitting aerial , which Eve has strung up through an umbrella .
After they get the umbrella up , one of the cleaning woman put a small speaker system up to her capitulum . The picture show then cuts to a shot of a womanhood speaking into a mike .
She then hold in that microphone up to a record player , which is presumably toy music .
Since the fair sex on the street only has a verbalizer to her ear and no microphone , it ’s fairish to arrogate that our idle words Age disc jockey ca n’t hear her speak to her friend . What ’s not entirely exculpated from the film is whether the cleaning lady act the phonograph is act as it for many citizenry or just the two women on the snowy street . The use of the give-and-take “ phone ” in 1922 did n’t necessarily mean two machine that could both receive and broadcast message . Sometimes ( as perchance was the case with Eve ’s radio set ) the telephony was used for a one - fashion message .
You canwatch the entire filmfor yourself .
The usage of an umbrella as an feeler for a crystal radio set date back at least to 1910 , as we can see from the epitome below , which ran in theFebruary 20 , 1910 Washington Post . The image is somewhat amazing to twenty-first century eyes , but it ’s not until we read the last few lines of the accompany article that we agnise the wireless communicating is only travel in one direction and is little more than a crystal radiocommunication , which needs a ground joining .
Wives can call husband at their office staff or on the way to Harlem or the suburb in the car and say , “ Do arrest at the butcher ’s on the corner and get some liver and Baron Verulam ! ” It ’s the girl ’s twenty-four hour period out . And you have it off how she is ! She never regularise a thing onward … .
Advice to matrimonial Men – Do n’t you care when your married woman says angrily , “ Do n’t tell me , I lie with you hear me . I call you all daylight and your wireless telephone set was in consummate condition when you secure it to your hat this morning when you left the theatre . ”
Affect a look of surprisal and reply , “ Do n’t be wild dear . I leave to take off my synthetic rubber and wore them all 24-hour interval . ”
Indeed , by 1922 , the term “ wireless telephone set ” as used in Eve ’s Wireless was in reality quite old fashioned . The article below from the January 31 , 1909 Nevada State Journal also point an former use of the term for peak - to - compass point radio set communication with ship on the Great Lakes .
An article in the May , 1922 issue of Radio Broadcast magazine even mentions the shift in nomenclature in an article called “ The Romance of the Radio Telephone . ” :
The account of the radio receiver telephone set is a study of extreme . It is the most popular fad at this moment , yet only a short while ago it was the most unpopular design ever introduced to the world . To - daytime it is in many in force hands for full and levelheaded exploitation ; a XII years ago the wireless telephony , as it was then called , was the prey of unscrupulous stock promoters who used it as a means of prying money away from the green public .
The U.S. Commerce Department held a get together in 1922 to standardise the expert voice communication of radio . At that meeting the Committee on Nomenclature of the Radio Telephone Conference delineate terms like “ hindrance ” and “ antenna . ” The Committee also recommended the adoption of the word “ radio ” rather than “ tuner . ”
The June , 1922 issue of Radio Broadcast magazine devoted a page to explaining the citizens committee ’s recommendations with the newspaper headline , “ What to Call Them . ” The first recommendation on the tilt was about the use of the Book “ receiving set ” :
In shoes of the word “ Wireless ” and names derived from it , use the prefix “ Radio ” ; Radio Telegraphy , Radio Telephony
In 1922 , the lyric of radio was in transition because of basal technological improvements made by men likeLee de ForestandEdwin Howard Armstrongover the old twenty years . The conception of broadcast medium ( impart from one transmitter to many receiver ) was technically impractical until the mid-1910s , when Armstrong meliorate vacuum thermionic tube engineering , making it potential to amplify a wireless signal thousands of clip more than was adequate to before . During World War I , the U.S. government commandeered all wireless transmitter , which kept Armstrong ’s technology from being used by anyone but the military . But after the state of war , the hard-nosed use of radio as a form of mass media start to be realize .
The article below appear in the June 15 , 1919 Fort Wayne Journal - Gazette and describes the advances that were just over the visible horizon ; a futuristic time when the president might address the entire state at the same time over the radio receiver . The president “ at the ‘ phone ” as it were :
The term “ wireless telegraph ” and “ wireless telephone ” were kind of like calling the automobile a “ horseless bearing . ” telephone and electric telegraphs in the other 1900s reckon on physical lines that would channel voices and electric impulses from one person to another . An article by Prof. J. H. Morecroft in the July , 1922 issue of Radio Broadcast powder magazine excuse why the transition was made from using the terminus “ radio ” to the term “ radio . ”
The new idea of using radiated energy , as contrasted to the previous schemes , gives us the reason for the variety of name from wireless telegraph , up to now a proper name for the art , to that of radio communication , indicate that the exponent used in carrying the message was not due to conduction through the earth ’s surface , or to magnetic induction , but to energy which was actually shaken loose from the conduct station antenna , and leave to travel freely in all directions .
In 1922 telephone set were hard - cable and your voice was hold over pipeline that would have to go to an operator . The operator would then piece you in with another physical conducting wire to the trust receiver of your call .
British Pathe even refer to the supposed mobile phone in Eve ’s Wireless as thefirst “ flip phone”because the top of the radio receiver opened .
A fellowship listening to radio together ( August , 1922 Radio Broadcast magazine )
A man listening to the tuner contagion of an opera house ( February 26 , 1922 Ogden Standard - Examiner )
Below are photographs from the Library of Congress which day of the month from between 1910 and 1915 . The handwritten description on the bottom read , “ Wireless Telephone , Los Angeles . ”
Men using radio technology circa 1910 - 1915 , called Wireless Telephone at the time ( Library of Congress )
Photo showing the “ McCarthy Wireless ‘ phone ” circa 1910 - 15 ( Library of Congress )
History often play lingual tricks on us . We all look back at early eras through the prism of our own biases . The evolution of voice communication — especially when it comes to apace change technologies — can make us retrieve we ’re keep an eye on or reading about something much more incredible than it is . However , there was a lot of exciting futuristic communication technology that people were get up at the beginning of the radio old age , and we ’ll look at a few of those in the hebdomad to total .
This post primitively appeared atSmithsonian.com .
1920sMobile phone
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