The early 1900s saw the dawn

Of the telegraph

With Guglielmo Marconi

That sent dots and dashes

And his famous “s”

Across the wide Atlantic Ocean

- – -

Inventors like Lee de Forest and Ronald Fessenden

Dreamed of substituting wireless with voice

They thought that such invention

Would have far reaching implications

For the human race

That  it eventually did

- – -

It was in 1906 that Ronald Fessenden

Played his violin at Brant Rock, MA

Sang a song and read from an old bible

This marked the first broadcast

That began on a cold and blustery

Christmas Eve Day

- – -

Doc Herrold of Santa Clara Valley, CA

Went further when he was the first

To delight listeners in his audience

With the spinning of phonograph records

Image via Wikipedia

Having such instantaneous broadcasts 

Between 1912 and 1917

- – -

A transmitter came into being

With Lee Deforest after World War !

In the form of a vacuum tube

That was used to transmit broadcast signals

But it was not until 1919

That the miracle of broadcasting began on a daily basis

In the San Francisco Valley

- – -

Although the work of Frank Conrad

Pushed radio further with more developemnt

Of the vacuum tube during a brutal war

It was not until 1920 that KDKA, Pittsburgh, PA

Went on the air

To do the first political broadcast in American history

Of the Harding-Cox presidential elections

- – -

Broadcasting was mainly over cyrstal sets

With earphones

General Electric and Westinghouse

Were granted the rights to make all receivers

Western Electric could build transmitters

AT &T could charge those engaging 

In broadcasting and be in network

Broadcasting business itself