English: An early live radio play being broadcast at NBC Studios, New York. The rise of AM radio broadcasting, the first electronic mass entertainment medium, sparked an outpouring of creativity and new types of entertainment were invented for the new medium: mystery serials, radio plays, soap operas, variety shows, and children's hours. Since recording technology was primitive and expensive, most programs were broadcast live. The lefthand man was the sound effects man or "Foley artist". He holds an effects board with some of the mechanisms with which he creates the sounds of walking feet, ringing telephones, closing doors and gunshots to increase the realism of the play.

Caption: "Broadcasting from a central studio"

Alterations to image: Partially removed aliasing artifacts (crosshatched lines) introduced during the scanning of the original halftone photo, using Gimp FFT filter