Television comes to Detroit - 1946/1947

[benman94]

Originally Posted by jmdocs

Wow--this is terrific stuff. Thank for putting it together and sharing it. I'm fascinated by the arrival of television in various markets. In Pittsburgh, my great-grandmother bought a set (Dumont console!) in 1948 even though the first station didn't go on the air until 1949. She was from the old country and I think she saw it as a way to show off to the neighbors how well her family was doing in America.

Also, I wonder what the ratings were like for "Study in Slides!" Probably a 100% share...

That sounds very similar to my Grandparents' story, but with a twist. My Grandfather had just returned from the Navy and married my Grandmother. My Grandfather purposely scheduled their wedding so that my Great Uncles Neil and Skip would be on leave from the Navy, and therefore able to attend.

Neil and Skip both had BAs in Physics from UM Ann Arbor (back in the prewar era most EEs still earned physics degrees), and they were radar men during the war. Anyway, they were dumped off in NYC for leave, and they decided, being electronics "nerds" to go down to radio row to pick out a wedding gift for my Grandparents. To make a long story short, the gift they picked out was a brand new Viewtone television set.

My Grandparents weren't enamored with it, initially anyway, as there wasn't anything on the air in Detroit yet! But, when broadcasting officially began in October 1946, they likely would have been the only middle class couple in the entire city capable of watching television from the comfort of their own living room. Whether or not they did watch the inaugural broadcast, I don't know. Neil and Skip were living with my Grandparents after their discharges as they had a rocky relationship with my Great-Grandfather, and the postwar housing crisis made getting homes of their own impossible. I only ever met Neil and he couldn't recall if they watched the October telecast or not. He did recall that by March of 1947 the set was receiving regular, if infrequent use, and that my Grandfather gradually warmed up to the whole idea of television.

Eventually Neil and Skip went to work for RCA in Cherry Hill, NJ, then down to Princeton, then finally they ended their careers working out in Los Angeles and later Silicon Valley.

My Grandfather, in the mean time, purchased a new set within a few years and relegated the Viewtone to his garage, where it sat until he died. The set eventually made its way to their attic, and eventually from the attic to one of my Aunts, and from her to my TV collection.

I've loaned the set out to a handful of local museums, but as of right now it's at our vacation home in northern Michigan. I feel lucky to not only have a Viewtone, but to have one that has never actually left our family.