Philco Model 16B Cathedral Radio

America embraced a new technology in the wake of World War One: radio. The wide availability of affordable receivers allowed people across the country to access both local and national programming. Radio became so popular that even the Great Depression could hardly slow sales. Philco manufactured this model 16B “cathedral” style radio around 1933. The model 16B was an eleven-tube superheterodyne with two wave band receivers that could pick up broadcasts from as far away as Britain. The front of the case consists of a single speaker with four knobs—the station selector, tone control, wave band switcher, and the power and volume control.