On Air:

80 Years of Commercial Broadcasting in the

Mahoning Valley

With the opening of this new exhibit, Mahoning Valley residents have an opportunity for a close-up look at the history of radio and television in the region. The exhibit has several interactive stations to enjoy audio and video recordings from the Business and Media Archives collection and other sources. Artifacts and photographs bring to life the many sounds and sights that represent the past 80 years of Mahoning Valley broadcast history. 
  
An introduction space sets the stage for two larger galleries. One is dedicated to the history of radio broadcasting in the Valley and the other focuses on local television and newer technologies that broadcast entertainment and information into our lives in the 21st century.

The radio history gallery includes the original transmitter used by Warren P. Williamson, Jr. and Creed Chorpenning for their first live broadcast on September 26,1926. Listening stations  in this gallery include President Franklin D Roosevelt's speech to congress asking for a declaration of war against Japan after the bombing of Pearl harbor on December 7, 1941, and part of an interview by WKBN Radio 570's Pete Gabriel with his cousin, Andrea Hanson, and eyewitness to the terrorist attack in New York City on September 11, 2001.                      

The television history gallery contains a video presentation of clips from a variety of local news stories over the past 50 years from the Business and Media Archives collection. Television recording and editing equipment from WFMJ-TV 21 and WKBN TV-27 demonstrate the various methods used to produce and transmit programs from the studios to home television sets over the years. The staff of the Business and Media Archives co-produced a digital video program with MultiMedia Farms featuring oral histories with local radio and television figures. 

The Mahoning Valley Historical Society educates and promotes an interest in the history of the Mahoning Valley by collecting, preserving, and developing material representative of the people who have inhabited the region.

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