ABSTRACT
Wireless was a wonder. Celebrated as a new science for the universal benefit of humanity, broadcasting officially began in Australia in September 1923. The magic, the marvel, the romance, and most frequently, the wonder of wireless were the terms in which the commercial beginnings of this culture industry were hailed. For the first few years this rhetoric was to dominate popular and official declamations about radio. It was claimed to be part of the exciting new age of modern electricity through whose bounty the everyday lives of the entire population would be made radiant. Opening the 1923 Radio and Electrical Exhibition in Sydney Town Hall, Dr Earle Page, the acting Prime Minister, was widely quoted as proclaiming ‘the wonders of wireless’ and expressing the belief that soon there would be ‘wireless for all’.1
