#[1]alternate [2]alternate [3]alternate IFRAME: [4]https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-W3S34Q8 [5]Skip to content [6][j_dailylogo_header_184x60.png] [7]where news meets its scholarly match * [8]Newsletters * * * ____________________ (BUTTON) * [9]Arts & Culture + [10]Art & Art History + [11]Film & Media + [12]Language & Literature + [13]Performing Arts * [14]Business & Economics + [15]Business + [16]Economics * [17]Politics & History + [18]Politics & Government + [19]U.S. History + [20]World History + [21]Social History + [22]Quirky History * [23]Science & Technology + [24]Health + [25]Natural Science + [26]Plants & Animals + [27]Sustainability & The Environment + [28]Technology * [29]Education & Society + [30]Education + [31]Lifestyle + [32]Religion + [33]Social Sciences * [34]About JSTOR Daily * [35]Newsletters * [36]Contact The Editors * [37]Support JSTOR Daily [38]Politics & History The People Who Thought Farmers Without Radios Were Rubes In the 1920s, some people thought that the new invention of radio would make American farmers less “backward.” John Frost and daughter listening to radio in their home. Tehama County, California via [39]LOC By: [40]Livia Gershon August 20, 2020 August 19, 2020 3 minutes [41]Share [42]Tweet [43]Email [44]Print The year 2020 (August 20, to be precise) marks the 100-year anniversary of the [45]first broadcast by a federally licensed radio station, Detroit’s 8MK. The advent of real-time mass media changed the country in all kinds of ways. In the 1920s, media scholar Randall Patnode writes, [46]one potential effect on many people’s minds was the redemption of the “backward” farmer. As one Kentucky paper argued in 1923, “The people of these [rural] towns are out of touch with the rest of the world and their chief conversation is gossip.” The article concluded, “What these people need is radio.” Patnode writes that this patronizing view of farm life was particularly striking given that, throughout the nineteenth century, farmers were understood as the quintessential Americans. Thomas Jefferson called them the “chosen people of God.” Ads for radios in the farm press featured mansions with Roman columns and well-dressed listeners. Patnode suggests a couple of reasons newspapers focused on “redeeming” the farm. One was that many people in fast-growing cities—including newspaper reporters and editors—had moved away from their family’s farm and had mixed feelings about agricultural life. Presenting farms as backward reaffirmed their choice to leave. Meanwhile, promising a remedy for that backwardness helped alleviate any guilt about those left behind. The second reason was commercial. Newspapers were supported by advertisements and had a deep interest in constantly promoting a narrative of progress through consumption. As Patnode explains, the narratives found in both urban newspapers and rural magazines suggested that farmers would be interested in radios primarily out of practicality. By keeping abreast of information like commodity prices, they could optimize their operations for financial success. Publications also promoted radio as a source of status. Ads for radios in the farm press featured mansions with Roman columns and well-dressed listeners. One promised that “no other radio has such social prestige.” In a story from Wireless Magazine, reprinted in local papers, one actress promised that radio productions like performances of Shakespeare’s plays would “emancipate” the small town. “The small village of the past, with its warped outlook on life, its ignorance of current events, its mean and petty superstitions, is in line to be completely ‘revamped,’ as it were,” she promised. Weekly Newsletter Get your fix of JSTOR Daily’s best stories in your inbox each Thursday. ________________________________________ Subscribe [47]Privacy Policy [48]Contact Us You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message. A 1930 book about radio by journalists Alfred Goldsmith and Austin Lescarboura described the radio’s near-miraculous transformation of a farmer: Now, as the farmer walks down the street of the city, smooth-shaven, neatly dressed, self-possessed—nobody turns to stare… [He is] no longer a Rube but a man of the world, sympathetic with his fellow men, be they rural dwellers like himself or cooped up in two-room apartments on Monoxide Lane. In reality, Patnode argues, it’s not clear that either market information or status improvement were top-of-mind for rural radio listeners. A 1925 survey by a Chicago station found that farm families’ first listening choice was barn dance music. It seems likely that many of them had little to no interest in having their communities “revamped” by sophisticated urbanites. __________________________________________________________________ [49]Support JSTOR Daily! Join our new membership program on Patreon today. [50]Share [51]Tweet [52]Email [53]Print Have a correction or comment about this article? [54]Please contact us. [55]farming[56]radio[57]Technology and Culture JSTOR logo Resources JSTOR is a digital library for scholars, researchers, and students. JSTOR Daily readers can access the original research behind our articles for free on JSTOR. [58]"What These People Need Is Radio": New Technology, the Press, and Otherness in 1920s America By: Randall Patnode Technology and Culture, Vol. 44, No. 2 (Apr., 2003), pp. 285-305 The Johns Hopkins University Press and the Society for the History of Technology Join Our Newsletter Get your fix of JSTOR Daily’s best stories in your inbox each Thursday. ________________________________________ Subscribe [59]Privacy Policy [60]Contact Us You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message. Read this next [61]Guglielmo Marconi [62]Arts & Culture [63]Guglielmo Marconi and the Birth of Radio Guglielmo Marconi successfully made the first transatlantic radio transmission on December 12, 1901. Trending Posts 1. [64]The History Behind the Roller Skating Trend 2. [65]The Linguistic Evolution of Taylor Swift 3. [66]Did Barack Obama Deserve the Nobel Prize? 4. [67]The Devastation of Black Wall Street 5. [68]Who Wrote the Declaration of Independence? More Stories [69]Photographs of criminals, with mask in the centre, from Cesare Lombroso's l'Uomo Delinquente, 1889 [70]Quirky History [71]Criminal Minds? Try Criminal Bodies Cesare Lombroso wanted to use science to understand who criminals were. But his ideas about biological "atavism" easily transferred to eugenics and nativism. [72]A young protester marches during the All Black Lives Matter Solidarity March on June 14, 2020 in Los Angeles, California. [73]Politics & Government [74]A Century of Black Youth Activism The history of the 1950s and 1960s Civil Rights Movement is widely studied, but young Black Americans have been organizing for justice for much longer. [75]Women’s Day March poster from the Womens Liberation Workshop in London, 1975 [76]U.S. History [77]What Was Women’s Liberation? The short-lived radical movement within feminism has gotten a bad reputation for centering white women's experiences. Is that deserved? [78]A statue of Maya and Merit displayed in part in the permanent Egyptian collection at the National Museum of Antiquities or Rijksmuseum van Oudheden in Leiden, Netherlands. [79]World History [80]Hair, Gender, and Social Status in Ancient Egypt Egyptian tomb chapels depict men, women, and children of different ranks in society. What can their hairstyles tell us about their lives? Recent Posts 1. [81]The Midcentury Women Who Played With Dollhouses 2. [82]Criminal Minds? Try Criminal Bodies 3. [83]Freshwater Fish of Virginia 4. [84]A Century of Black Youth Activism 5. [85]Wildfires and Climate Change Support JSTOR Daily Help us keep publishing stories that provide scholarly context to the news. [86]Become a member JSTOR Daily provides context for current events using scholarship found in JSTOR, a digital library of academic journals, books, and other material. We publish articles grounded in peer-reviewed research and provide free access to that research for all of our readers. * [87]Contact The Editors * [88]Submission Guidelines * [89]Masthead * [90]Newsletters * [91]About Us * [92]RSS * [93]Support JSTOR Daily * [94]JSTOR.org * [95]Terms and Conditions of Use * [96]Privacy Policy * [97]Cookie Policy * [98]Accessibility [99]logo JSTOR is part of ITHAKA, a not-for-profit organization helping the academic community use digital technologies to preserve the scholarly record and to advance research and teaching in sustainable ways. © ITHAKA. All Rights Reserved. JSTOR®, the JSTOR logo, and ITHAKA® are registered trademarks of ITHAKA. Sign up for our weekly newsletter Get your fix of JSTOR Daily’s best stories in your inbox each Thursday. ________________________________________ Subscribe [100]Privacy Policy [101]Contact Us You may unsubscribe at any time by clicking on the provided link on any marketing message. (BUTTON) × References Visible links 1. https://daily.jstor.org/wp-json/wp/v2/posts/220503 2. https://daily.jstor.org/wp-json/oembed/1.0/embed?url=https://daily.jstor.org/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/ 3. https://daily.jstor.org/wp-json/oembed/1.0/embed?url=https://daily.jstor.org/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/&format=xml 4. https://www.googletagmanager.com/ns.html?id=GTM-W3S34Q8 5. https://daily.jstor.org/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/#main 6. https://daily.jstor.org/ 7. https://daily.jstor.org/ 8. https://daily.jstor.org/newsletter/ 9. https://daily.jstor.org/category/arts/ 10. https://daily.jstor.org/category/arts/art-art-history/ 11. https://daily.jstor.org/category/arts/film-media/ 12. https://daily.jstor.org/category/arts/language-literature/ 13. https://daily.jstor.org/category/arts/performing-arts/ 14. https://daily.jstor.org/category/business/ 15. https://daily.jstor.org/category/business/business-business/ 16. https://daily.jstor.org/category/business/economics/ 17. https://daily.jstor.org/category/politics/ 18. https://daily.jstor.org/category/politics/politics-government/ 19. https://daily.jstor.org/category/politics/us-history/ 20. https://daily.jstor.org/category/politics/world-history/ 21. https://daily.jstor.org/category/politics/social-history/ 22. https://daily.jstor.org/category/politics/quirky-history/ 23. https://daily.jstor.org/category/science/ 24. https://daily.jstor.org/category/science/health/ 25. https://daily.jstor.org/category/science/naturalscience/ 26. https://daily.jstor.org/category/science/plantsanimals/ 27. https://daily.jstor.org/category/science/sustainability/ 28. https://daily.jstor.org/category/science/technology/ 29. https://daily.jstor.org/category/education-and-society/ 30. https://daily.jstor.org/category/education-and-society/education/ 31. https://daily.jstor.org/category/education-and-society/lifestyle/ 32. https://daily.jstor.org/category/education-and-society/religion/ 33. https://daily.jstor.org/category/education-and-society/social-sciences/ 34. https://daily.jstor.org/about/ 35. https://daily.jstor.org/newsletter/ 36. https://daily.jstor.org/contact-us/?from_url=/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/ 37. https://www.patreon.com/jstordaily 38. https://daily.jstor.org/category/politics/ 39. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017788147/ 40. https://daily.jstor.org/daily-author/livia-gershon/ 41. https://www.facebook.com/dialog/share?app_id=419334385204394&display=popup&href=https://daily.jstor.org/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/&redirect_uri=https://daily.jstor.org/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/ 42. http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://daily.jstor.org/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/&text=The+People+Who+Thought+Farmers+Without+Radios+Were+Rubes&via=JSTOR_Daily 43. mailto:?subject=The People Who Thought Farmers Without Radios Were Rubes&body=In the 1920s, some people thought that the new invention of radio would make American farmers less "backward." Read More: https://daily.jstor.org/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/ 44. javascript:window.print() 45. http://www.dailydetroit.com/2016/08/20/detroit-first-first-government-licensed-radio-station 46. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25148108?mag=the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes 47. https://about.jstor.org/privacy/ 48. http://www.jstor.org/contact-us/ 49. https://bit.ly/30jM88p 50. https://www.facebook.com/dialog/share?app_id=419334385204394&display=popup&href=https://daily.jstor.org/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/&redirect_uri=https://daily.jstor.org/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/ 51. http://twitter.com/intent/tweet?url=https://daily.jstor.org/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/&text=The+People+Who+Thought+Farmers+Without+Radios+Were+Rubes&via=JSTOR_Daily 52. mailto:?subject=The People Who Thought Farmers Without Radios Were Rubes&body=In the 1920s, some people thought that the new invention of radio would make American farmers less "backward." Read More: https://daily.jstor.org/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/ 53. javascript:window.print() 54. https://daily.jstor.org/contact-us?from_url=/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/ 55. https://daily.jstor.org/tag/farming/ 56. https://daily.jstor.org/tag/radio/ 57. https://daily.jstor.org/pub_tag/technology-and-culture/ 58. https://www.jstor.org/stable/25148108?mag=the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes 59. https://about.jstor.org/privacy/ 60. http://www.jstor.org/contact-us/ 61. https://daily.jstor.org/the-birth-of-radio/ 62. https://daily.jstor.org/category/arts/ 63. https://daily.jstor.org/the-birth-of-radio/ 64. https://daily.jstor.org/the-history-behind-the-roller-skating-trend/ 65. https://daily.jstor.org/the-linguistic-evolution-of-taylor-swift/ 66. https://daily.jstor.org/did-barack-obama-deserve-the-nobel-prize/ 67. https://daily.jstor.org/the-devastation-of-black-wall-street/ 68. https://daily.jstor.org/who-wrote-the-declaration-independence/ 69. https://daily.jstor.org/criminal-minds-try-criminal-bodies/ 70. https://daily.jstor.org/category/politics/quirky-history/ 71. https://daily.jstor.org/criminal-minds-try-criminal-bodies/ 72. https://daily.jstor.org/a-century-of-black-youth-activism/ 73. https://daily.jstor.org/category/politics/politics-government/ 74. https://daily.jstor.org/a-century-of-black-youth-activism/ 75. https://daily.jstor.org/what-was-womens-liberation/ 76. https://daily.jstor.org/category/politics/us-history/ 77. https://daily.jstor.org/what-was-womens-liberation/ 78. https://daily.jstor.org/hair-gender-and-social-status-in-ancient-egypt/ 79. https://daily.jstor.org/category/politics/world-history/ 80. https://daily.jstor.org/hair-gender-and-social-status-in-ancient-egypt/ 81. https://daily.jstor.org/the-midcentury-women-who-played-with-dollhouses/ 82. https://daily.jstor.org/criminal-minds-try-criminal-bodies/ 83. https://daily.jstor.org/freshwater-fish/ 84. https://daily.jstor.org/a-century-of-black-youth-activism/ 85. https://daily.jstor.org/wildfires-and-climate-change/ 86. https://www.patreon.com/jstordaily 87. https://daily.jstor.org/contact-us/?from_url=/the-people-who-thought-farmers-without-radios-were-rubes/ 88. https://daily.jstor.org/submission-guidelines/ 89. https://daily.jstor.org/masthead/ 90. https://daily.jstor.org/newsletter/ 91. https://daily.jstor.org/about/ 92. https://daily.jstor.org/feed 93. https://www.patreon.com/jstordaily 94. http://www.jstor.org/ 95. https://daily.jstor.org/terms-and-conditions/ 96. https://www.ithaka.org/privacypolicy 97. https://www.ithaka.org/cookies 98. http://about.jstor.org/accessibility/ 99. https://www.jstor.org/ 100. https://about.jstor.org/privacy/ 101. http://www.jstor.org/contact-us/ Hidden links: 103. https://www.facebook.com/JSTORDaily 104. https://twitter.com/JSTOR_Daily 105. https://www.instagram.com/jstor_daily/?hl=en