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The additional clues are the microphone and the fact that they both have pieces of paper in their hands and she's looking out of the window, I think it is some kind of public address system in a private school and the keyboard is for playing short melodic introductions. That was my guess from just the photo, before you posted the site link. I can't see a radio, unless it's the thing that looks like a clock
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There is a radio, it shares the same dial as the clock. Judging from the two records on top, one broken, there is likely a phonograph under the lid above the radio dial.
As stated, a school or barracks house PA system would have a mic and a few knobs, but in the 40's probably an ugly grey metal housing. Maybe this is the high end model.
As stated, a school or barracks house PA system would have a mic and a few knobs, but in the 40's probably an ugly grey metal housing. Maybe this is the high end model.
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I worked with the old gear at another major university and yes, ugly grey.
This photo is interesting on many levels.
There is the masterful control of grey-scale, and simple yet effective lighting in what may have been a dark attic with glare from the window.
Over 1/4 the picture is blank white wall.
The lighting and posing are careful but the set is not cleaned-up. The broken record. Matches on the floor.
Both faces are turned away. The long-tone film does not bring out the skin tones. This is Howard University, now called "historically Black" because it was founded to educate Americans of African ancestry. Another clue is the photographer, Gordon Parks. We may know him from Shaft. But in the 30s he did portraiture, and in the 1940s he worked with a couple Government photography projects.
I am thinking: the equipment is obviously important, and he hoped to sell the image to radio/electronics and guy magazines. He could just snap the set no-people. But that woman in the white dress is pure eye-candy (for popular markets of the time). Posing her like that jazzes-up the image with less risk of racial rejection.
In that time, cabinet making was a big deal, and could possibly have been as cheap as ugly grey metal. Most equipment designers just picked an ugly grey box. But some customers and organizations have a sense of Style. Also they may know a Black cabinet maker who is eager to work with them to design function and style. Howard may even have had a Design program with sharp students--- it is very in the style for 1942.
Ah-- the 2-octave keyboard is a carillon, bells in a tower worked by a keyboard down below. The motor seen behind the table powers an air-pump to work the bell clappers (opposed to a "manual" carillon where you hit keys with fists and wires pull the clappers). Few other instruments would be worth just two octaves. Considering what a carillon must cost, the cabinet is not excessive and the radio/phono bits are incidental.
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