The U.S. Presidential Campaigns of 1908 and 1912: The Reshaping of American Political Communication

Scholars routinely observe that the advent of radio reshaped political speech from the impassioned pleas bellowed to thousands, to conversations among intimates in the quiet of the living room. But for more than a decade before the first commercial radio broadcast station was inaugurated in Pittsburgh in 1920, citizens in their living rooms, drawing rooms, and parlors had been listening to candidate speeches. This feat was made possible by the phonograph.