This is fascinating.
This is a real treasure! I’ve been listening for about an hour. I’m really digging the music and laugh at the way products are promoted. I just heard Pepsi glass bottles, six for only a quarter. I plan on listening to this all day. I love the way people talked back then. What is that accent and why don’t people talk that way anymore?
WJSV is still broadcasting, as WTOP. Prior to being bought by CBS, WJSV was owned by James S. Vance, reportedly a Grand Wizard in the Klan.
Technically WTOP-FM is a sister station. WJSV was WTOP for many years, and is now WFED,
It’s called a Transatlantic or Mid-Atlantic accent, and it was actually an acquired/learned accent that was taught to kids and theater and broadcasting personnel.
I guess that explains the horribly racist shortnin’ bread bit in part 4. Or maybe that was just standard fare for that time.
The news reports are fascinating. This was during WWII but before the US was involved. Washington is debating the arms embargo and our neutrality stance.
Talking about products; there’s a quiz show where the participants get a loaf of “Certified Double Taste Bread”.
I just came back to discuss the “darkies” in Shortnin Bread. I was always taught “children” of course. I was a bit shocked when they sang about “darkies”.
I have enjoyed this all day today. I have looked up recipes using pet milk and vanilla wafers, learned about the Penn-Daw restaurant, a few WW2 related facts and standard prices for clothes and groceries in 1939. My son has been enjoying it too, especially the soaps. He keeps saying “That’s so wholesome”.
Now he says he wants to learn that accent. Thanks romansperson.
I LOVED the trivia quiz for the bread loaves! Thanks again Davidm. This is the stuff that really brings history to life.
I haven’t looked but I wouldn’t be surprised if there are some YouTube videos that offer tutorials on that accent. Any videos/audio recordings of FDR or Eleanor Roosevelt would be good examples as well. My ex-boyfriend of years ago could do a spot-on of Eleanor and sometimes when he was at my house and the phone would ring he’d answer as Eleanor if I wasn’t close enough to get there first. Jerk 
A fascinating time capsule about an interesting day in our history.
Yeah, the sexism and racism were appalling. Not just Shortnin’ Bread, but the Amos ‘n’ Andy segment. Wow!
I loved it when the newscaster sneezed right into the mic.
And did you catch the reporter John Charles Daly, later of “What’s My Line?”
The commercials. 10-cent beer. The new 1940 cars. And apparently many people still washed their clothes in the tub with a washboard.
And what was that bit about the death ray and mummy’s curse at the top of the Eiffel Tower?
And what was that weird pledge by the hairdressers, not to let fashion reflect the 1940s?
Answer these questions and you get a loaf of “Certified Double Taste Bread”.
So cool!
Walter Johnson was one of the greatest pitchers of all time, but god was he boring as an announcer! (It also seems weird to me that they cut into the Washington Senators game in the 4th inning).
I didn’t listen to the whole thing, but I believe that this is the box score for the game.
I think that this may be that bread.
I’ve been bouncing around listening to other parts of the day…
The sports report was interesting. Of course they led with the baseball scores, as it was the end of the season and baseball was king (and Boston had a team called the Bees). But it was interesting to me that they then gave boxing info before moving on to football, showing the order in which the sports were revered. Also, the football stats make very clear that passing was rare; leading receivers had 4 receptions, for example.
I also enjoyed the (contemporary) story of Lou Gehrig, who had quit playing that season. It’s sad that the reporter assures people that, while he won’t be able to play anymore due to his rare disease, doctors say that he will continue to live; he would be dead within 2 years.
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There’s some random sexism I picked up during the quiz show. They were speaking to people about town and asking them questions (relating to vocab words, mainly: i.e.
"If you were going to get a ruminant, where would you go?). One young lady introduces herself by name and the announcer immediately responds with “Miss or Mrs?”. Perfectly normal back then; rude and possibly offensive today.
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Mostly, though, I think it’s clear that our sense of what is entertaining is different. The shows were slooow and plodding (at least as far as I could listen), but I’m sure they were considered wildly entertaining for their time. I think we have a different standard for what we find interesting depending on our culture, and it’s clearly a different culture we are listening in on.
It’s interesting that when they give the weather report, they don’t give any exact temperatures. They just say it will get “warmer” or “cooler”.