Radio stand at 1928 exhibition

A display of Atwater Kent radios at Odlin’s stand in the Winter Show Buildings, Wellington, in September 1928. From modest beginnings in the early 1920s, radio broadcasting took New Zealand by storm in the interwar years. Radio would become a familiar, daily presence in most people’s lives, a major source of entertainment and leisure, and a powerful cultural and social institution.

By the mid-1920s the Philadelphia company founded by Arthur Atwater Kent had become America’s leading radio manufacturer. It was a major exporter to developing markets like New Zealand.