100 Years Ago: Thanksgiving on the Radio

Our Daily Show! 100 Years Ago With Lacy: Radio Programs... Were Programs!

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s broadcast station, KSD, presented a special Thanksgiving week program on Monday, November 24, 1924, and the offerings were impressive. The Alton Evening Telegraph printed radio schedules in the newspaper so Altonians could plan to tune in. The 7:00 p.m. show was broadcast from the Missouri Theater (sometimes spelled Theatre) at 626 N. Grand Blvd. in St. Louis. It is no longer a theater, but a section of it still exists as the Angad Arts Hotel. The building is between The Fabulous Fox and Powell Hall (which was originally the St. Louis Theatre).

Here is the program, with further explanation of each piece when information was available.

1. Organ solo by Milton Slosser – “Dreamer of Dreams,” music by Ted Fiorito. The Missouri Theatre was equipped with a Wurlitzer Hope-Jones Unit Orchestra organ which had 4 Manuals, 32 Ranks. Vocal Duet by tenor Henry Klotz (often listed as Heinie Klotz) and soprano Peggy Nash. Klotz and Nash were successful vaudeville performers and sang together on radio programs throughout the 1920s. You can download the “Dreamer of Dreams” sheet music here: https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/cht-sheet-music/10834/
2. Thanksgiving Overture – The Orchestra
3. Orchestral Accompaniment to News
4. Thanksgiving Revue –
• The Symbol of Thanksgiving
• Thanksgiving in the year 1620 – Presenting the Mayflower Sextette, with Lillian Boemler, Amie Punshon, Randall Fryor, Treher Firman, Paul W. Simmons, and Leonard Barry.
• Oriental ballet – Burnoff and Josephine, former Imperial Russian Ballet artists. They performed at the Missouri Theater hundreds of times between 1924 and 1926, usually dancing a short number before the feature film was screened.
• Thanksgiving in the old Southland – Featuring banjo-land and seven banjo artists, entire company. They played solos and medleys of popular music of the past and present.
• Thanksgiving St. Louis 1930. Depicting Thanksgiving of the future.
5. Orchestra and organ music for feature picture “Forbidden Paradise.” “Forbidden Paradise” stared Polish actress Pola Negri, who, in 1921, was the first European actress to sign a contract with Paramount. She was also a style icon who popularized red toenails, turbans, and fur boots. She walked her pet cheetah on the residential streets of Los Angeles, and had relationships with Charlie Chaplin and Rudolf Valentino.

The performances in person must have been absolutely stunning, but if you couldn’t make it to the Missouri Theatre, at least you could listen on the radio.

The United States Department of Commerce assigned the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the wireless call KSD in early March 1922, and they held their first radio broadcast the same month. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch printed letters from listeners all over the United States and Canada who had heard the station and wanted to share their experiences. There were only a handful of major radio stations at the time, and in the 1924 publication of “Simplicity of Radio,” KSD is the only St. Louis station listed.

Occasionally, local musicians played on KSD. The Mulqueeny’s Orchestra from Alton appeared on the radio program on February 6, 1923, and the Shurtleff College Glee Club sang on May 12, 1923. The Standard Oil Refinery Band at Wood River played for an hour on September 15, 1922. Approximately 150 people assembled at the Streeper Undertaking parlor in Upper Alton to hear the broadcast. All over the country, the band was listened to and it must have given widespread enjoyment to hundreds of thousands of people.

Sources

“Angad Arts Hotel.” PARIC Corporation, 2024.https://www.paric.com/project/angad-arts-hotel/

Crosley, Powel. 1924. Simplicity of Radio. [Ed. 16]. Cincinnati, O.: Crosley Pub. Co.https://www.worldradiohistory.com/BOOKSHELF-ARH/Technology/Technology-Early-Radio/Simplicity-of-Radio-Powell-Crosley-1924.pdf

Eschen, Frank. “How Station KSD Took to the Air.” St. Louis Media History Foundation, 2023.https://stlmediahistory.org/how-station-ksd-took-to-the-air/

“Filmdom’s First Femme Fatale.” The American Institute of Polish Culture, 2024.https://ampolinstitute.com/lmdoms-first-femme-fatale/

“KSD Official Radio Call Assigned to Post-Dispatch by Department of Commerce.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri), March 8, 1922.

“Marvel of Modern Radio Demonstrated When Post-Dispatch Broadcasts Opera to Listeners from Canada to the Gulf.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri), July 23, 1922.

“Missouri.” St. Louis Globe-Democrat (St. Louis, Missouri), November 25, 1924.

“Pola Negri “Silent Accuser, “Classmates” On the Movie Bills. St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri), November 25, 1924.

“Radio Programs.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), November 24, 1924.

“Refinery Band Heard by Large Audience by Radio.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), September 16, 1922.

“Special Attractions at Children’s Show.” St. Louis Post-Dispatch (St. Louis, Missouri), December 15, 1924.

“Shurtleff Glee Club to Give Concert at Station KSD.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), April 23, 1923.

“Will Appear at Radio Concert.” Alton Evening Telegraph (Alton, IL), January 27, 1923.

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