Christmas 100 Years Ago

Sounds of the season – including selected radio shows and spoken addresses – first heard by those who lived through Christmases of the Great Depression, the attack on Pearl Harbor, World War II, polio epidemics, the miracle vaccine, the rise of commercial air travel, television, transistor radios, and the birth of rock’n’roll.

6+ hrs of holiday audio
from 1920s-1965

on Apple Music (101 tracks)

on Tidal (100 tracks)

on Spotify (100 tracks)

on YouTube (98 videos)

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Who were the original artists of “The Little Drummer Boy”? The Trapp Family Singers, who called it “Carol of the Drum.” Fourteen yrs later, their lives were Hollywood-ized in The Sound of Music. The original “Little Drummer Boy,” by the real Trapp Family in 1951, is fuzzy, but still, beautiful.

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