Last
November I finished a multi-year archaeological survey near Benedict, Maryland
and at the end of this past July I finally finished writing the report. Our work was funded by a grant from the Southern Maryland National Heritage Area. The
crew members were primarily members of CCASM, Inc. but other volunteers
included students and people who were just enthusiastic about archaeology and
history. We weren’t in the field every week during the survey, we had to
schedule our field walking time around the agricultural schedule of planting
and harvesting. Some of the sites we found we tested with shovel test pits and on a few we
excavated larger units. One of the sites that we found was the Bowling tenant
farm house ruins. Among the household artifacts we recovered from the site (and
the bathtub, toilet, and water heater that we left behind) was a small blue
porcelain insulator embossed with the company name “CORWICO” and in the corners
ANT and GND.
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Corwico Lightning Suppressor Measurements are in centimeters |
This little mysterious artifact sent us on an interesting research trip to figure out just what the heck it is and then down the rabbit hole to explore early radio in Southern Maryland. We did some internet surfing and were able to identify the artifact as a ground for a radio antenna made by the Cornish Wire Company of Paterson, New Jersey. They moved to Williamstown, Massachusetts in 1936, but their corporate headquarters were in New York City. In both Paterson and Williamstown, their main product was wire, but they also made antennas for radios – both internal ribbon and external loop antennas. Other products sold by the company were electrical cords, insulators, and lightning arresters, the latter of which included our small artifact. Their brand name was Corwico and by 1927 they were selling full outdoor antenna kits. Their first dark green-glazed porcelain arresters were introduced in 1929. These were replaced in the early 1930s by two main blue-glazed porcelain arresters: No. 825, which had two posts, and No. 827 (doublet). Ours is No. 825. Corwico continued to produce radio antenna and arresters through World War II but appears to have discontinued production after the war.[i] So we now had a date for our piece, sometime between 1930 and roughly 1945. That would help us to date the rest of the artifact assemblage (a term that means collection of artifacts). But what about this piece? It was more than just a temporally diagnostic artifact. It had a story to tell about the people who lived in the tenant house. And that’s where the rabbit hole comes in.
Zelby, Elaine. “History of the Idiom ‘Down the Rabbit Hole.’” Useless Knowledge Blog. 2019. Electronic Document. https://medium.com/useless-knowledge-daily/history-of-the-idiom-down-the-rabbit-hole-fe044ff96fde Accessed 27 September 2025.
I’ve been fascinated by radio my entire life. For my 12th birthday my parents gave me a transistor radio, not one of the small handheld ones, but a larger albeit still portable one. At night I was able to pull in not only the local Pittsburgh stations but also stations in Chicago, Schenectady, New York City, places in the Midwest, and one night I pulled in a station from somewhere in Texas. This opened up a whole new world for me during an era when Vietnam and Watergate dominated the air waves. Nine years later, I got what was then called a limited radio telegraph operator license and was on the air for a year with WSIU radio in Carbondale, Illinois (an NPR affililate). At the end of that year I realized that the first love of my life was archaeology and never looked back. But radio is still a great favorite and long road trips are a chance to sample local stations that haven’t succumbed to the iheart Radio takeover. The little artifact’s combination of radio history and archaeology led me to the rabbit hole.
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The WSIU Control Room in 1977 I would sit at this board two years later during my time at the station https://widbnetwork.org/?m=202001 |
Why did people need this little blue suppressor in the first place? In 1925, the National Electrical Code Regulations produced by the National Board of Fire Underwriters for Electrical Wiring and Apparatus, included a section of regulations for the installment of lightning arresters for all outdoor antenna.[ii] These arresters were placed on the wire that led from the antenna into the house where it was attached to the radio, thereby protecting the radio, and anyone near it, from lightning strikes. In rural areas, the antenna might be placed on the roof of the house or even on a barn or windmill. In the latter case a wire ran from the barn or windmill to the house.[iii] I suspect that the antenna on our site was set up on the high hill immediately behind the house. This hill sits at about 90 feet ASL and towers over the Patuxent River and the surrounding area. During the 1930s broadcast signals were not what they are today and the height of this hill enabled the family to better capture the signal whether coming from Washington, D.C. or Baltimore.
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The radio owned by the family living in the house was either a battery operated system or it was run on electricity produced by a gas powered generator (see my blog post “Let There Be Light,” dated 29 March 2024 for more information about these generators). Electric power lines were not run into this part of Charles County until the 1940s at the earliest. I haven’t been able to find a right-of-way agreement between the then landowner and either the Southern Maryland Electrical Cooperative (SMECO) or the Potomac Electric Power Company (PEPCO) for the erection of poles and lines across the farm. As the house is a least a mile from the nearest main road, it may not have had electricity until the 1950s. The battery operated systems “…were powered by a set of B and C dry batteries and a 6-volt storage battery. The main battery needed to be recharged at a local garage…”[iv] or by the farm’s own electrical generating plant.
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Battery-operated radio in farm home of FSA client in Orange County, Vermont. Photographer Russell Lee. October 1939. Library of Congress. Digital ID: fsa 8b38118 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8b38118 |
Radio ownership in the United States boomed during the 1920s. By 1930, approximately 50 percent of urban households owned a radio as compared to 27 percent of rural households. However, during the Depression of the 1930s, the purchase of radios by rural household increased dramatically. By 1940, 70 percent of rural households owned a radio.[v] Why the increase? For one, the price of radios had decreased so that even families on a tight budget could afford them. Additionally, the number of stations had increased across the country so that areas that had previously lacked radio coverage now had it.
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Farmer and Wife Listening to the Radio USDA Extenstion Service, 1925-1930 Library of Congress Digital Id:cph 3b02305 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b02305 |
The most popular radio program was The National Farm and Home Hour, which was broadcast daily from Chicago on ABC at 12:30 EST. The program started on 30 September 1929 and continued until St. Patrick’s Day 1945. It then moved to Saturday on NBC affiliates in late 1945 and aired until January 1958. In its final inception it was sponsored by Allis-Chalmers, an agricultural equipment manufacturer. The show was produced by the United States Department of Agriculture. As well as airing information about farming, it also featured a variety show. Its host, Everett Mitchell was well known for his opening catch phrase: “It’s a beautiful Day in Chicago.”[vii]
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1940s NBC Advertising Card for The National Farm and Home Hour Ebay |
Radio also provided connection to the outside world. Farm families, especially the women, were often isolated on the farm for long periods of time. Foul weather, poor roads, and lack of transportation often meant that the family was unable to go to town, attend church services, or visit friends. This was particularly true for the Midwest and Western states where distances from the farm to town often exceeded 20 miles over unpaved roads. The family living on the Bowling farm was only a few miles from the stores in Hughesville and Benedict but at least part of the trip was over unimproved dirt roads. Still, as one women wrote in 1925: “The radio service is a godsend to isolated families. When something happens, as something may do, and the receiver is temporarily disabled, it’s like a sickness in the house. Perhaps it isn’t the entertainment that counts so much. I’m ready to say that it isn’t. But just the human contact...”[viii]
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Farm Family Listening to the Radio USDA Extention Service, 1925-1930 Library of Congress Digital Id: cph 3b02306 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b02306 |
It took awhile for radio stations to convince companies that there was money to be made by advertising to their audiences. A 1938 survey by CBS found that 80 percent of their rural listeners were buying products advertised during their programs.[ix] Rural households became consumers of prepared foods and name brand products. Our excavations showed this to be the case at the Bowling tenant house. Items recovered during our study of the site included commercial containers for catsup, relishes, and other condiments, items that farm women had generally produced for the family. Although canning jars and lids were part of the assemblage, indicating that women on the farm were still “putting up” fruits and vegetables, there were numerous tin can fragments from store bought items. We also recovered fragments of glass ware. The glass ware included tea cups and saucers that were give aways placed by manufacturers in boxes of detergent, canisters of oatmeal, and sacks of flour during the 1940s and 1950s. It was a way to encourage women to purchase their brand. These were national brands that could be purchased at Dudley and Lyons or the A&P grocery store, both of which were in Hughesville.
Two Different Types of Consumer Behavior are on View Below
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Libraryof Congress Digital ID fsa 8c32776 //hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/fsa.8c32776 |
Radio not only revolutionized advertising, it had a direct impact on communication in the 1920s and 1930s. Franklin Delano Roosevelt realized this and used the medium to convey news and updates about economic conditions in the country, proposed legislation and programs associated with the New Deal, and information during World War II. He delivered 31 of these “Fire Side Chats” between 1933 and 1944, making sure that each “chat” used language that would be heard in a conversation between friends and that they were never overly dramatic. Politicians who followed FDR realized that radio was a direct way to connect with people, a practice that is still utilized through television ads and internet postings.
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Franklin Delano Roosevelt During One of His Fire Side Chats 24 December 1943 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fireside_chats |
While we may talk about how the internet has revolutionized communication and shaped our culture, radio was really the first in the mass communication revolution. Despite this, radio was just one part of the transformation of rural life between 1920 and the end of the Second World War. Rural electrification (which I’ve posted about earlier), improved access to personal transportation and mechanized farm equipment, and the increase in the number of telephones in rural households, all had a profound impact on American farm families and the practice of agriculture.
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| Listening to a Serial, 1943 Lehman College Leonard Lief Library Bronx, New York https://www.lehman.edu/library/childhood/listening_to_the_radio.html |
[i]
Howard, Dan. “Corwico - Cornish Wire Company.” Old Familiar Strains. Vol 8(6):3-10. 2001. Electronic Document. https://reference.insulators.info/publications/view/?id=7343.
Accessed 15 June 2024. Radiomuseum. “Radio Lightning Arrester 825.” Radiomuseum. Electronic Document. https://www.radiomuseum.org/r/corwicocor_radio_lightning_arrester.html.
Accessed 15 June 2024.
[ii] Regulations of
the National Board of Fire Underwriters for Electric Wiring and Apparatus as
Recommended by the National Fire Protection Association. American Standard
Approved July 3, 1925, by American Engineering Standards Committee.
Published by the American Engineering Standards Committee, 1925.
[iii] Wik, Reynold M. “The Radio in Rural America during
the 1920s.” Agricultural History Vol.
55, no. 4, pp. 339-350, 1981.
[iv] Wik, 1981:340.
[v] If the rural south, which was more impoverished than
other areas of the country during the 1930s, is excluded from this number, the
percentage\ of rural households with radios increases to 84 percent. Craig,
Steve. “‘The More They Listen, the More they Buy’: Radio and the Modernizing of
Rural America, 1930-1939.” Agricultural
History Vol. 80, no. 1, pp. 1-16, 2006.
[vi] University of Maryland. “WMUC Station History” University of Maryland Libraries, 2025. Electronic
Document. https://exhibitions.lib.umd.edu/wmuc/before-wmuc.
Accessed 27 September 2025.
[vii] Wik, 1981. Estep, George. “A
Beautiful Day in the History of Chicago Radio. Chicago Tribune 11 May 1986.
[viii] As quoted in Craig, 2006, pg. 2.
[ix] Craig, 2006.
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