Sarah's Transistor Radios

In 1947, William Shockley, John Bardeen and Walter Brattain invented a device at Bell Laboratories that truly was world-changing. It was called the transistor.

The transistor made it possible for electronics, prior to this time enslaved to large, hot vacuum tubes, to be greatly miniaturized. The transistor was also much cheaper to produce.

By the 1950's and 1960's, transistors were powering small, inexpensive radios. And nearly everyone had one.

The little music boxes were great candidates for innovative design, and manufacturers didn't disappoint.

That leads us to today's FamilyFirst site: Sarah's Transistor Radios.

Sarah is clearly obsessed with radios. Her website contains over 1000 photos of her collection. Here's her mission, in her own words:

Welcome to my collection of transistor radios. I have found these small sound boxes to be fascinating ever since I was a small child. The idea that something so small could pull an extremely weak signal out of the air was nothing short of miraculous to a seven-year-old. Now, my fascination lies in the designs of these radios, which bear all the intrigue, change, and yes, kitsch (sometimes!) of the era they were made.

And what a collection it is. You can spend hours browsing through the standard, the unusual, the bizarre. For instance, check out the Westinghouse RS21PO8A Escort. This radio had a fine timepiece, a flashlight, and a cigarette lighter built in!

Spend some time here and remember how much fun it was to browse the radios at your Montgomery-Wards.

http://www.transistor.org/

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