PRESIDENT TRUMAN ADDRESSES NATION ON TELEVISION
Washington, D.C. (JFK+50) On October 5, 1947, Harry S Truman became the first President of the United States to give a televised address from the White House. He was not, however, the first president to appear on television.
Franklin D. Roosevelt gave an address on April 30, 1939 that was seen by a very limited audience at the New York World's Fair.
In his address, Mr. Truman asked the American people to cut back on their consumption of grain in order to help Europeans who were running short of food supplies in the post-war era.
The President suggested also that Americans only eat meat on Tuesdays and eggs and poultry on Thursdays.
JFK+50 NOTE
In 1947, when HST's address was televised, there were only 222,000 television sets in the United States comprising less than one-half of one percent of the population. As of March 1, 1948, there were 10,000 sets in Washington, D.C. and 20 stations nationwide.
By 1952. there were 24.336,000 television sets in the U.S. comprising 52.9% of the population. Also, the number of stations had risen to 225.
I was born in 1948 and my family did not have a television set until I was ten years old. We could only pick up two channels, NBC & CBS affiliates here in Knoxville. We didn't get a color set until 1968. The first presidential address we saw on it was LBJ's "I will not seek, nor will I accept, the nomination of my party for another term as your president."
SOURCES
"Early Television Museum," www.earlytelevision.org/
"Truman Is A Star On Television," JFK+50, October 5, 2011, www.jfk50.blogspot.com/
