The nearby National Voice of America Museum of Broadcasting reopened last month after a seven-month closure for refurbishing. I visited the museum back in 2022 but had been hearing about the update and decided to fill an idle Saturday with a return visit. One thing that is different from the last time is noticeable from the outside. Visitors now enter from the side rather than the front. I’m guessing that’s part of the recent rework, but it might have been that way beforehand.
I arrived a few minutes ahead of the day’s first guided tour, and I used those minutes to look over the Cincinnati radio and TV displays near the entrance. Cincinnati was a real leader in the early development of both forms of broadcasting. The pictures are of the Larry Smith Puppets and the Ruth Lyons set. Smith came to fame on the Uncle Al Show and later had a show of his own. Ruth was a true pioneer in daytime talk TV. Note the converted-to-color Predicta TV next to Ruth’s sofa.
When I visited in 2022, the display of Cincinnati’s commercial broadcasting history was kind of like a big attic. These nicely designed exhibits are typical of the improvements made during the recent refurbishing.
When the United States entered World War II, Cincinnati’s WLW was using this 50,000-watt transmitter to broadcast entertainment to South America via shortwave. The newly created Voice of America initially rented the transmitter and started broadcasting on February 1, 1942, less than two months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. In the second picture, Joe, our guide, demonstrates how shortwave signals reflect off of the ionosphere and bounce around the globe.
The Volksempfänger (people’s receiver) existed to bring Nazi propaganda into German homes, and USSR-built transistor receivers did the same for the Soviet Block. The VOA never managed to get its programming to the Volksempfängers, but the BBC did. People figured out how to tweak the Soviet radios to pick up both. Incidentally, VOA has never broadcast propaganda, rightfully believing that broadcasting the truth is more effective.
Within about a year and a half, the building that is now the museum was complete, equipment was in place, and a huge array of antennas was erected. The last picture is just the front panels of the 250,000-watt transmitter, which is not just room-sized — it’s a room. I think at least half of our tour group stepped inside at the same time without a hint of crowding.
Here is something left over from World War II that is still pretty useful.
My October Tinkertown visit began with a nice chat with owner Carla Ward. We had exchanged a few emails when I reviewed her 2020 book, 
Tanya was living in Los Angeles at the time but was present in New Mexico when the diagnosis was delivered, and even moved back to the museum that had been her childhood home for a while to help with things as the disease progressed. On the day of the diagnosis, she found herself remembering stories her dad told her as a child and wondering just how the plaques and tangles the doctor tried to describe would affect her father’s brain. She asks herself, “Will he survive this? If he doesn’t, who will tell the story?”
Tanya’s life wasn’t exactly typical. That her parents divorced and her dad remarried when she was quite young is hardly unusual, but that her mother and stepmother were both important influences as she grew up was a bit so. Even more unusual were occasional trips with her father as he traveled the country, painting rides and signs for carnivals and the like. The house she grew up in had walls made of concrete and empty bottles. It was filled, like a museum, with her dad’s artwork, and part of it was an actual museum open to the public.
Before I even opened this book I was aware of Gloria Nash’s childhood fascination with the 1964 World’s Fair, the family circumstances that brought her back to the neighborhood, and her visits to the old fairgrounds that ultimately led to creating Looking Back at the Future. I was not aware of a high school photography class assignment to “locate and photograph remnants of the fair” that had recently closed. A few black-and-white pictures taken at that time are included in this volume where she wraps up that assignment in style.
The book’s subtitle, “Photographing Vintage Leftovers of New York’s World’s Fairs”, accurately describes its main thrust. Well-written text provides background on both fairs, and there are descriptions of buildings and other items that no longer exist, but photographs of what that subtitle calls “leftovers” fill the bulk of the book. Most were taken by the author although a few come from other sources. Some images from postcards and other promotional materials are also used sparingly. The book is printed on good quality fairly heavy stock but it is not coated gloss stock. All of the modern photos are bright and clear and look quite good but this is not a “coffee table” book.
Nash has done a phenomenal job in tracking down fair remnants and makes sure that others can “locate and photograph” these leftovers, too. The location of all leftovers at the fair site (now Flushing Meadows Corona Park) is shown on a map with color coding to distinguish 1939 leftovers from 1964 leftovers. Both chapters on “On-Site Leftovers” contain what amounts to a tour guide for a walk that visits each of them. Chapters on “Off-Site Leftovers” describe locations and give addresses where appropriate. An appendix provides these locations in a list format.
Although both of these fairs made lasting impressions on the people who attended them. neither was a success from the organizers’ point of view. Organizers in 1939 hoped for 50 million visitors but got only 45 million. The target in 1964 was 70 million, but only 51 million showed up. I wasn’t around in 1939, and even though I was very much around in 1964 and well aware of the fair, I did not attend. I have only attended one world’s fair in my life, and that was in 1983 in Knoxville, TN. Nash says that was the last profitable world’s fair held in this country. Coincidence?
I’ve been anticipating this book for a few years now. Henry was probably well into his research for the book when he gave a presentation at the 2017 Lincoln Highway Association conference on trekkers who had incorporated all or part of the highway in their travels. The Lincoln Highway and other trails aimed at automobiles appeared in the latter half of the golden age of trekking, which Trekking Across America focuses on. Henry identifies this as roughly 1890 to 1930. Merriam-Webster defines a trek as “an arduous journey” and during that period just about any long-distance journey that did not involve the railroad was unquestionably arduous. I ordered the book as soon as I became aware of its publication but my own non-arduous travels and the winter holidays kept me from reading and reviewing it until now.
A fellow named Edward Weston is credited with getting the walking craze started by walking from Boston to Washington to satisfy a bet made on the wrong guy (Stephen Douglas) in the 1860 presidential election. Apparently, Weston decided that he really liked walking and was quite good at it. He proceeded to set records and win awards into his seventies. In some circles, the rampant pedestrianism of the time was referred to as Westonianism.
Postcards are also a rather natural way to provide a visual connection with a trek’s story. Henry divides these stories into five chapters based — not all that rigidly — on the reason for the trek. Following a chapter’s introduction are several segments featuring one or two specific treks with at least one related image. Postcards often provide those images. These two or three page standalone segments allow “Trekking Across America” to be read in small doses if desired.
Individual males were hardly the only ones undertaking these long arduous journeys. Buddies, siblings, newlyweds, whole families, and even a few lone women appear on these pages. Incidentally, little evidence is presented here that a trekking honeymoon will lead to marital bliss. The rules for some of the contests and challenges were also interesting. Virtually every trek involved some sort of time limit but rules about clothing, starting with little or no money, and working en route were also common. After the turn of the century, gimmicks such as the aforementioned skating or rolling a hoop might be involved. One fellow fiddled every step of the way as he walked from New York to Los Angeles and on to San Francisco.
Peter Yarrow died this week, and the news brought back some memories that he is a part of. Peter’s main claim to fame was his time with Peter, Paul, and Mary whom I saw twice. I also saw Mary Travers in a solo performance once. Of course, the bulk of my memories come from listening to the trio on the radio and on vinyl.
ADDENDUM 4-May-2025: Writing this naturally renewed thoughts of those long-ago events, and when I learned I could access some Cincinnati Enquirer archives through my local library, I went looking. Here is the last paragraph of Cliff Radel’s February 18, 1980, article. Cliff’s day-old memory was better than my 45-year-old one. It was Peter rather than Paul who intervened on my behalf, and I’ve corrected that above. On the other hand, I feel obliged to reiterate that I and the flasher were two different people, regardless of whether either of us was a photographer.
