Personal Portable Electronics: The Beginning

Personal Portable Electronics: The Beginning

It’s not difficult to pinpoint the time period when personal electronics first appeared.  It happened just prior to WWII.  Before then electronics consisted only of radios and phonographs neither of which was either very personal or portable.  By 1938 it was possible to build radios that could be carried and used as a personal set, but few manufacturers were selling them.  Magazines such as Popular Science and Popular Mechanics featured several “build it yourself” articles for those wishing to have a radio primarily for use by one person.  Radio manufactures pretty much ignored the idea.

In 1938 the new low power radio tubes supplied by the Sylvania Corp. allowed most radio manufacturers the opportunity to design personal radios.  Very few did.  One of the few was the Majestic Radio Company.  In 1939 they built, advertised, and sold a very small (for the time) radio that could be carried on the shoulder like a purse.  It used three low power tubes and was self contained (radio, battery, antenna, and speaker in one unit).   No one could argue that the radio was anything other than a personal radio.

Majestic advertised the radio as similar to a camera, which at that time most people understood as a small box handing from a shoulder strap.  The camera comparison was copied by a number of competitors including RCA, DeWald, Admiral, and General Electric.  By 1940 these radio manufactures and many others were producing and selling “camera style Personal Radios”.  Many of these personal sets were battery powered and intended for use by one person often while walking.  Thus personal portable electronics was born. 

Since their cases were made of pressed cardboard few, 1939 Majestic “Personal Radios” survived.