ABSTRACT
In the 1930s, the American family clustered around the radio console in the living room, mostly to be entertained. They computed family finances by hand or perhaps with the help of a mechanical adding machine with a noisy pull handle. They had a telephone, but they shared a single line with other neighbors, called a party line, which served several households. They wrote letters to distant relatives and mailed them with 2-cent stamps. All their news came from the local daily newspaper.
