10/08/2026
The Thursday, 8 October MAARC Facebook post comes to us from the December 1993 "MAARC Newsletter." Entitled "EMERSON AND INGRAHAM," it was written by long-time MAARC member Brian Belanger, based in part on material provided by Barry Cheslock.
"Many radio collectors concentrate on radios from one manufacturer. While I have lots of different brands in my collection, I am particularly fond of Emersons, and have more of them than any other kind. Why? Because I am fascinated by the exotic wood cabinets that Emerson featured during the 1930s, my favorite period. While other manufacturers made tombstones and cathedrals that tended to look pretty much alike, Emerson tended towards the unusual. Other companies used simple speaker cutouts with grille cloth, but Emerson employed in many models wood speaker baffles characterized by swooping curves and circles. (Figure 1. Emerson Model DB-315, with curved wood speaker baffle - see photo.) (Figure 2. AX-series "Little Miracle" set, only about 5 1/2" tall, with wood speaker grille - see photo.) (Figure 3. Emerson Model R-167. The curved grille area is typical of Ingraham cabinets of the late 1930s - see photo.) Emerson made the famous "Mae West" radio (see photo), radios with curved sides like the Model U6F (Figure 4. Model U6F. Ingraham cabinets used curved sides much more frequently than other makes - see photo.), and unusual models with cabinets in the shape of violins (the "Strad" - see photo).
I am not aware of anyone who has done a comprehensive history of Emerson, and I would welcome correspondence with anyone who has researched this company. For some unknown reason, very little has been written about this company, even though they were a major manufacturer.
According to the book Small Radio, published by Emerson in 1943, the Emerson Radio and Phonograph Company was formed in 1924 by consolidating the Emerson Phonograph Company, Inc. and the Emerson Radio Corporation. Prior to that, the Emerson Phonograph Co. had established a solid business, having sold thousands of phonographs and millions of records.
During the 1920s, Emerson remained a relatively minor player in the radio business. However, early in the Depression, they found their niche and began to make inexpensive radios in small cabinets. In the right place at the right time, their sales increased steadily throughout the '30s while other radio manufacturers were going bankrupt in droves. They were one of the first companies to market successfully a very inexpensive compact ac/dc set (Model 25 - see photo), and were also among the first to use Bakelite cabinets. By 1941 Emerson was selling almost 1.2 million radios per year and had 17.5 percent of the market.
A great many radio manufacturers of the 1930s contracted out the manufacture of wood cabinets to furniture companies. Emerson engaged the E. Ingraham Company, a well-established New England clock-making firm, and Ingraham made many of Emerson's most interesting wood cabinets.
It is not clear exactly when Emerson began using Ingraham cabinets, but it may have been when Emerson introduced the Model 25. In Small Radio, Benjamin Abrams, president of Emerson in 1943, said the company had been impressed with the success of the inexpensive "midget" or "mantel" sets made by a variety of small companies in the Los Angeles area during the 1929-1931 era. He felt that it ought to be possible to do even better in terms of sizing down. He describes the development of the Model 25 as follows:
"In 1932, when the fortunes of small radio were at their lowest ebb, I found what I was looking for and what later pointed the way to a successful operation. It was a clock, or rather a clock case--handsomely styled as style was understood in those days, and only ten inches wide, six and a half inches high, and four inches deep. The idea of squeezing a radio chassis, complete with speaker and tubes into a case of such dimensions was, of course, preposterous."
Abrams noted that his engineers had to develop miniaturized (for that era) tuning capacitors, coils, dials, and other parts in order to shoehorn the works into a clock case. The Model 25 chassis, which was available in a couple of different wood clock- case cabinets as well as a Bakelite cabinet, was a four-tube receiver with a six-inch speaker. When most other radios were designed to use a long-wire outside antenna and a good ground, the Model 25 used a hank of wire that could be unrolled behind the sofa or under the bed. It weighed only six pounds when other "midget" sets tipped the scales at 25-30 pounds. It listed for $25. According to Abrams, more than 200,000 of these compact sets were sold during the 1932-33 period.
Abrams doesn't say that the clock case that inspired him to develop the Model 25 was made by Ingraham, but that seems likely because it was about that time that Emerson radios began appearing in small wood cabinets with a metal plate on the back indicating that the cabinet was "Made by Ingraham."
Emerson's success in making small inexpensive radios that performed fairly well helped to change people's thinking about radio. Instead of visualizing a radio as a large highboy piece of furniture destined only for the living room, or a heavy cathedral or tombstone that required a sturdy table to support it, people could now imagine a radio on a bedside table or a kitchen shelf. Emerson also was one of the first companies to create successful novelty radios specifically intended for a child's bedroom, such as the 1933 Mickey Mouse radio (see photo) and the similar Snow White model (see photo).
Barry Cheslock, an Emerson-Ingraham aficionado, recently wrote to Stuart Mitchell, curator of the American Clock and Watch Museum in Bristol, CT, seeking information about Ingraham that would shed light on its connection with Emerson. Mitchell pointed out that during the 1930s, Ingraham was eager to expand its business and branched out into making humidors and veneered cigarette cases. Their arrangement with Emerson was probably their most successful venture outside of their normal clock business. Ingraham's 1938 catalog featured two pages of Emerson radio cabinets. However, Mitchell was unable to locate any information regarding when precisely Ingraham began making cabinets for Emerson or when the relationship ended.
The styling of 1930s Emerson console cabinets is very similar to that of their small table models made by Ingraham, which suggests that Emerson consoles could also have been designed and made by Ingraham. But a page from a 1938 Ingraham catalog stated that Ingraham had "facilities for designing and producing high grade cabinets in sizes up to but not exceeding end table radio models." This certainly suggests that someone other than Ingraham made Emerson's large console cabinets. I wonder who?
Today you can buy consumer electronic products with the Emerson name and treble clef logo, but don't be fooled. Years ago an overseas company bought the rights to use the Emerson name and logo, and there is no connection between today's Emerson products and those marvelous old Emerson radios pictured in this article.
If you have any additional information on Emerson and/or Ingraham, do share it with us!"
Well, a Google search revealed that there is no major, dedicated standalone book published about the corporate history of the Emerson Radio Corporation. Instead, the history of the company—founded in 1915 by Victor Hugo Emerson as the Emerson Phonograph Co. before being taken over by Benjamin Abrams and transitioned into radios Emerson Radio Corp. is typically documented across broader consumer electronics and vintage radio literature. Books like "The Portable Radio in American Life" by Michael B. Schiffer explore Emerson's vital role in producing compact novelty and pocket radios (such as the famous '888' transistor series). But with the help of the Internet, I was able to provide much nicer photos (than the black and white ones in the newsletter) of all the specific radios Brian addressed.
