Electrifying Speeches: Emotional Control and the Technological Aesthetic of the Voice in the Early 20th Century US.

PUBLIC speaking; SPEECH education; ELOCUTION; RADIO & society; RADIO announcing; TECHNOLOGICAL innovations & society; SOCIAL history; TWENTIETH century

An essay is presented on the concept of emotional control, the impact of technological advances, and the rejection of the practice of elocution in the instruction of the practice of public speaking during the 1920s. It discusses the role of speech teachers in the development of the nascent techniques, the ability to reproduce and amplify the human voice on radio, and the use of technological tools such as the Pronunciphone.