The Pure Oil Band

Edwin F. Goldman 1929

The Pure Oil Program is a bit obscure but it actually hosted Al Jolson's first radio appearance in 1929. So who was this band which launched such a legendary radio career? In the 1920s it seemed like every sponsor needed to have their own radio band. The book And now, a word from our sponsor, by Dorothy Hoober remarks on the 1920s convention: 

"Each program had its own musical group, and they were some times named after the sponsor of the program. Fran’s favorite was a banjo band called the Cliquot Club Eskimos. Cliquot Club was a brand of ginger ale. The Parkers also listened to the A & P Gypsies, the Pure Oil Band, and the Firestone Orchestra."

In the University of Iowa "Goldman Band Library" is a radio script from the Pure Oil Program as it aired on WJZ on November 11th 1925... almost 100 years ago. I'd love a scan but I don't have plans to go to Iowa this year. Short of getting that transcript, let's piece together the story.  

The first clue there is that the document is in the Goldman Band library. That would be Edwin Franko Goldman. (Sometimes spelled Franco) He was born in 1878. According to Boyd B. Perkins, "He first formed the New York Military Band in 1911 with the goal of employing the finest musicians and repertory possible."  That sentiment is echoed in a 1929 Union Banner article on the band:

"Every member of Mr. Goldman’s celebrated Pure Oil Band is a finish¬ ed solo artist on his particular instru¬ ment, and the ensemble has played together for a good many years. Many of the radio audience who have heard Mr. Goldman’s Band on con¬ cert tour, we believe will find in this weekly Saturday evening program the fulfillment of their desire for fine band music and will dial in any of the following stations Saturday evening: WJZ, WJAX, WBT, KDKA, WLW, WRVA, WSM, WMC, WBAL, WHAS, WJR, KYW, KWK, WREN, WEBC, KSTP, WTMJ, WHAM, WSB."

Previously Goldman had played trumpet in New York municipal bands which performed at the New York City parks and piers. Goldman felt that the musicianship was lacking in some of these groups. He gathered musicians he felt were the leading wind instrument players in New York City to discuss  forming a New York Military Band. After a number of private engagements, the new 40-member band began playing public shows on the Columbia University green in 1918. 

In 1923 construction forced their move from Columbia to the Mall in Central park. Starting in 1924 the Guggenheim family donated 76k to make the programs free to the public. The first show of that season attracted an estimated 30,000 people. That year they began broadcasts on WJZ and WGY. By 1925 WEAF was broadcasting them remotely and NBC began broadcasting them on their then fledgling network. They probably had 150 million listeners by 1928.

In 1929 the New York Times published an article quoted an unnamed NBC representative that the Goldman Band was "the victim of commercialism this season" Fewer program sponsors had signed off for the Summer season." there would not be three weekly concerts by the band, as it had been in 1928. Goldman still had a contract with WJZ with Pure Oil for a half hour on Tuesday nights, but he was retreating from radio. But WNYC did still broadcast their show from the park on Wednesday nights. It's clear that this incarnation of the band still broadcast as the Pure Oil band into November of 1929. 

Edwin's son, Richard became conductor in 1956 following his fathers death. The band also changed their name to the Guggenheim Band after their long time sponsor.  The live programs in the park continued until 1969 when they were moved to the Lincoln center for safety reasons. When the Guggenheim withdrew their funding the band name changed again to the Goldman Memorial Band.  The band finally broke up in 2005, now having no original members over private fund raising and a negotiating stalemate between the band's negotiating committee and the board of directors.  

Curt Peterson 1928

The NBC announcer for the program was Curt Peterson. He also did CBS Radio Mystery Theatre, Jones & Hare: the Interwoven pair, Collier's radio Hour, The Gillette Program, The Atwater-Kent Show, The Dutch Masters Minstrels. He was born in 1898 and other than a story about his bad handwriting, little is recorded about him.[SOURCE]  Peterson announced for Radio Mystery Theatre in 1975 when he would have been 77 years old. There are several other Curt Petersons, including the founder of Sabina records, and an engineer at KOVR to name a few. the disambiguation makes it difficult to track his career. But he does appear in the book Golden Throats and Silver Tongues. I did find a head shot from a 1928 radio mag. (above) 

That New York Times article seems to put an end date to this radio tale. But then I found some loose ends... It appears that in 1930 Pure Oil chose to sponsor a new band.  In the 1931 Chicago News daily Radio Station Directory [LINK] it lists Wayne King's Pure Oil Band on KYW. Those references start in 1930. [SOURCE]  The Encyclopedia of American Radio doesn't record an end to the program either. Strangely they call it a The Pure Oil Brass Band, no other attribution.  The Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio makes a passing reference under Richard Himber on the Pure Oil Hour with Eddie Peabody but that was just in 1933. Himber went on to provide music for The Spartan Hour, The Studebaker Champions, Thirty Minutes In Hollywood, and Melody Puzzles into 1937.  In 1935 Pure Oil sponsored the Vincent Lopez orchestra, but I think the band name was effectively dead by 1933.

Cacolim or Calcoim?

A 1925 issue of the Schenectady Gazette reported attempts at long distance reception with  2XI, 2XK, and 2XAF and members of the ARRL. On July 18th and 19th 2XI broadcast on 44 meters at 5 kW and 2XAF broadcast on 40.5 meters a 1 kW.The signals were audible clear to Miami. A second round of tests were conducted on July 25th and 26th.  2XK transmitted on 22.4 meters at 10 kW,  2XAF on 20.5 meters still at 1 kW and 2XI on 19.5 meters at a 4 kW. The programming was just a continuous loop of station ID via tape machines. Other less formal tests just rebroadcast content from WGY-AM.

So here is a small blurb I found this in the April 26th issue of the Cornell Daily Sun, the student newspaper of Cornell University in Ithaca, NY.  Back in the mid 1920s print news sources would still deign to write about radio, then a still awkward and scrawny competitor. So this fun was ongoing and something that in 1925 and 1926 that some newspaper (especially in upstate new York) were writing about.

The problem here is that we have two very similar April 20th articles on the same event in two different newspapers: the Cornell Daily Sun [SOURCE] and the Amsterdam Daily Recorder [SOURCE]. Both note the distance from Schenectady to Perth as 11,498 miles. (Google tells me that it's 11,508 but let's not split hairs.) Both note the 6;15 broadcast of a speech, but not who the speaker was. Both even note the response from Perth by cablegram. Both note the mystery sender of the cablegram. But there is one key difference. the Sun indicates the name is Calcoim. The Recorder lists their name as Cacolim... It's unclear which typoed the name.

Radio Age magazine reported in 1936 that  2ZAF was broadcasting to stations all over the world: JB in Johannesburg, South Africa, the BBC in the UK, and heard by radio listeners in Perth, Australia; Corumba, Brazil; and on board a ship in Kings Bay off Spitsbergen, Norway.  In other words the 11,498 mile distance didn't make reception impossible... that was really the fun of 2XAF and shortwave radio in general. They were still really staging the same events a decade after their 11,498 mile cablegram mystery.

But I believe I have solved it.  The typo may not actually matter. Cacolim and Calcoim are anagrams for Comical. (If you don't like that guess it's also a Portugese word for quail.)

Dinner Date at 2XAF

Back in the 1920s WGY-AM in Schenectady, NY also operated a shortwave station with the call sign
2XAF. The WGY broadcast facilities were nestled right at the big General Electric plant in town. But they were also doing interesting experiential short wave work was being done at a 52 acre "laboratory" in South Schenectady, NY. at that location multiple shortwave stations broadcast to the word... I'll list just a few.

2XAF - General Electric
2XAD - Ship Owners Radio Service
2XAW - Ship Owners Radio Service
2XAC - Ship Owners Radio Service
2XK   - L.M. Cockaday

While today shortwave is the kooky medium of elderly radio geeks, in the 1920s shortwave events could make the print news....and in that era short wave radio really made a go at it. They held numerous press events exploiting each for the maximum coverage possible. They were trying to find a foothold with some popular audience for the medium. Looking back we now know that in the U.S. this was an abject failure.

Notable among these was the first dinner party broadcast on the radio. As dinner parties go it sounds a bit choreographed and uptight.It was held on April 20th, 1927 at the Waldorf-Astoria hotel in New York, NY. It was broadcast by WEAF, and picked up by 2XAF for re-broadcast around the world.  The toast master George Edgar Vincent President of the Rockefeller Foundation, and guest Dr. James Rowland Angell the president of Yale University spent much of the time trying to raise money for yale. Their goal was 20 million dollars. No contemporary references indicate if they reached that goal but it's doubtful. While WEAF had a big coverage area, the  program was heard from London to Tokyo to Honolulu courtesy of 2XAF.

 Only a month later 2XAF appeared in the news again. In April they broadcast congratulations to Admiral Byrd on his first visit to the North Pole. In September the Dempsy v. Tunney boxing match was broadcast and heard around the globe. In 1928 they also attempted a number of image broadcasts testing early TV standards. They appeared repeatedly in magazines like Boy's Life into at least 1930.

Chamber of Commerce Radio

American City Magazine was a trade publication that began publishing around 1909 and was in circulation through the late 1920s. It normally focused on statistics, chamber of commerce activities, garbage disposal, coal prices, beautification, municipal affairs, paving techniques, street lighting, and the works of civil engineers. The magazine was pretty dry. It literally had regular articles about the placement of public drinking fountains. But in June of 1922  The American City Magazine uncharacteristically published an  article about radio.

The article reported that an Albany Chamber of Commerce meeting being broadcast live on the radio April 12th 1922. The article claimed that it was the first "radiophone" chamber of commerce meeting held in the United States. I'm pretty confident it was the first anywhere.

"More than 1,100 members and friends of the Chamber of Commerce gathered in beautiful Chancellors' Hall in Albany to hear the speakers, musicians and other participants in the program at the radio broadcasting station of the General Electric Company in Schenectady (WGY). The audience was therefore assembled about twenty miles from the performers. The program consisted of piano, violin and soprano solos, followed by a radio telephone speech delivered by Roy S. Smith, Executive Manager, Albany Chamber of Commerce."

They received "telegrams, letters and newspapers from scores of cities." apparently on that night reception was possible as far west as Terre Haute. Albany had notified many other Chamber of Commerce groups of the broadcast and many sent notices confirming reception.

The broadcast  included a speech by Chamber of Commerce President Roy Smith titled  "The Forces That Build Cities" which was described as a "short outline of chamber of commerce work."  I'm sure it was riveting.  then in an even more novel move, they followed that broadcast with a stunt on April 26th. To launch their membership drive, they employed a Fokker airplane to carry Mr. Smith—flying 2,500 feet over Albany to make a broadcast from the air. It was reported that it was heard over a 200 mile radius of Albany. Since the aircraft was equipped to send and receive, at the conclusion of the program they began receiving messages one from as far away as Newark, NJ. It is unknown if all this actually increased membership.

Martha Brooks

Martha Brooks began her career as as actress under her real name, Irma Lemke Forman. She was born before radio, in 1908 and became a household name at WGY-AM in Schenectady, NY.
She started with television first with the Jenkins Television Company in Jersey City. It was a company founded by Charles Francis Jenkins one of televisions early pioneers. In 1925 he demonstrated the synchronized transmission of pictures and sound. That same year he was granted U.S. patent No. 1,544,156.

In 1928, the Jenkins Television Corporation began broadcasting on W3XK the very first TV station. They also operated W2CXR in New jersey. It was based at the Jenkins Labs in Washington and moved to Wheaton, Maryland in 1929. There she was the first television programming producer. Jenkins sold retail TVs as kits, the RK-1 model debuted in 1931. But it was not to last. In March 1932, Jenkins Television Corporation was liquidated, and its assets were acquired by Lee DeForest who promptly declared bankruptcy and sold out to RCA. More here.

Brooks began voice acting at WGY radio in 1931. She expanded into writing and with "The Mister and the Misses" she acted as writer, director and performer. She also did the series "The FBI in Action," which ran from 1945 to 1955. She hosted a consumer affairs program called "Market Basket." In 1937 WGY launched the morning radio talk show, "The Martha Brooks Show." In 1945 she tried to TV again hosting similar programs at WGY-TV and WRGB-TV. She retired from broadcasting 1971.

Ernst Alexanderson, Swede and radio geek

He was the 3rd most prolific inventor in the history of America after Edison and Thompson. Ernst F. W. Alexanderson was granted a total of 344 patents, a truly incredible number. More here.He was born in Upsaala, Sweden in 1878. His parents were educated, a judge and a professor, it was clear that he would be educated but not how great his contributions would be. He studied electrical engineering at the Royal Institute of Technology and the Technical University in Berlin. It was there that he read a book titled class Alternating Current Phenomena written by Dr. Charles Steinmetz. He was so enamored of the book that he went to the US to meet Steinmetz at GE. You can read the book here.

Steinmetz got him a job in the lab at GE in 1902. It was at General Electric that he began his prolific inventing streak which included the Alexanderson Alternator. It was the Alexanderson Alternator that made brodacasting at higher frequencies possible.

back then the latest and greatest was the spark gap transmitter. These had limitations. they generated a carrier wave, but one at too low frequency to carry much data. Most of them werelimited to about 60 Hertz. None other than Reginald Fessenden came to GE in 1904 and asked for one that could generate a wave at a frequency of 100,000 Hertz.

Two years later Alexanderson had constructed a 2 kW, 100 kHz alternator. It's the one that Fessenden installed at Brant Rock, MA. Gugliemo Marconi bought two of them for his station in New Jersey. This was the Rolls Royce of it's day.In 1932 General Electric Company and RCA seperated. Alexanderson divided his time between the two branches as a consultant and refocused on Television. He continued to be a pioneer. He oversaw the construction of powerful radio stations in Sweeden, Long island and Hawaii He invented several more critical components for television, directional broadcasts, microwave, radar... the list goes on. Later in life he became an engineer for NBC working out of WGY.

He was elected to the Royal Academy of Science in Sweden, received the Medal of Honor from the IRE in 1919, Knighthood in Poland in 1924, The Edison Medal from the American IEE in 1944, the Royal Danish Medal in 1946, and in 1983 he was inducted into the Inventors Hall of fame. More here.

WDZ Was Number Three

Everybody argues on who was the first. The first license, the first broadcast, the first Fm , the first 24 hour operation, the first to run ads the first to whatever... WDZ stands up and proudly states that they are number three. More here.

WDZ is also known as Illinois' first commercial radio station. It began broadcasting from Tuscola, Illinois as experimental station 9JR. But this first licensed station is somewhat lesser known. They went live on March 17, 1921 with a schedule grain market reports for the agricultural community running twice an hour ...between long stretches of dead air. Anecdotally it has been reported that there were a total of two receivers in the area to actually hear the original broadcast on 883 AM. Their slogan was "The Buckle of the Corn Belt." More here.

The original station broadcast from an antenna that was a simple wire strung between a couple of buildings in Tuscola. The station changed frequency to 1080 AM as power output was reduced to 10-watts in 1923. It was a slow year. By that date there were only three radio stations on the air in America. These were KDKA in Pittsburgh and WGY in Schenectady, New Jersey. I think that WDZ got him more often with legislated license changes than any of them.

In 1927 the station was given a full time license to broadcast at 100-watts. But then The Radio Act of 1927 changed to license of WDZ to broadcast only during the daytime at 1070 kc. Then in 1936 the power increased to 250-watts, and the frequency to 1020am. Knowing that there were only three other stations when they started, it seems like their being singled out...

By 1941, WDZ had a fairly stable home on 1050 AM but still was broadcasting mostly Agricultural news but thankfully with more continuity than twice an hour. They began to add entertainment programming drawing performers from the southern hot beds of blues and country music. In 2006 they ran a dull Urban AC format as "Magic 1050."