Radio News Magazine July 1926

Alone at Last! reads the caption of the classic magazine cover from July, 1926. Perhaps Heartbreak Honeymoon would have been a better title. A young bride sits weeping on a hotel-room bed while her groom eagerly listens to a portable radio, oblivious to her distress.

Plastered with Just Married signs, their luggage sits unpacked as the eager groom twists the dials. In fact, he has set up the radio on top of their trunk, preventing his bride from unpacking and possibly changing into an ensemble that might draw his attention elsewhere. Perhaps there's a lesson here for all of us married radio fans . . . my wife certainly thinks so!

Can anybody identify the radio shown in this illustration? I flipped through the book The Portable Radio in Modern Life but didn't see anything that seemed to match. Perhaps this is a fictitious example, but if there is a real set that looks like this, I'd like to know.

Many thanks to Scott Balderston for providing a color copy of this magazine cover from his collection.

For a variation on this theme, check out the March 1935 issue of Short Wave Craft magazine, in which an impatient wife delivers some choice words to her husband as he blissfully DXs in bed.

Yet another pair appears on the cover of July 1935 Short Wave Craft. Let's hope that young man doesn't get too wrapped up in his radio, or the night may not end so happily!