Before tv and MTV, the radio was once central in the house, a way for the circle of relatives to gather to hear the news or listen to music. At one time, the radio was once a piece of hand-crafted wood furniture and limited stations fell silent all over a part of the day. Over 175 images provide an impressive visual journey through the radio s aesthetic history reflecting all of the major design changes across the years. The images also reveal the diversity of materials, textures, colors, shapes, and sizes of radios of earlier ages. It ranges from the 1920s tabletop wooden console models in the classic bread box, cathedral, and tombstone styles, the wooden and early Bakelite and Catalin plastic art deco models of the 1930s to the 1950s, on to the 1950s thermoplastic models in brand new styling, and the transistors that ascended to prominence in the 1950s and beyond. Reintroducing machines that few people see anymore and most likely hardly know existed, this fascinating book restores the once state of the art machines’ aesthetic glory.