Download a two-page scan of Radio & Television News, August 1957, featuring screen-star Martha Hyer and her DIY audio-hobby.
DOWNLOAD: Martha Hyer 1957 Radio TV News
Hyer is shown above in the midst of assembling her PERI 50, a mono hi-fi amp of the late 50s. You can download the schematic for the PERI 50 here: DOWNLOAD PERI 50 SCHEM. It’s a 50-watt ultralinear amp of extremely simple, efficient design.
Thanks to PS dot com reader T.F. for providing this article. This piece comes as contrast to typical Women-In-Fifties-HiFi depiction, examples of which are in this series of images. Despite the fact that ‘soldering-your-own-amplifier’ falls much closer to the wine-rack rather than gun-rack end of the macho spectrum, there was apparently nothing in American culture of the 50’s that could not be bro-ified, as this charming shop-apron of the era makes apparent:
Despite its intended message of unapologetic philandering and stamina, I kinda of get the impression that dude’s workmanship is shoddy and he has a shrill voice. Maybe not the best image to project. Thank god for social progress. And on that note: does this website have any female readers who build/service audio equipment? Drop us a line and represent…
4 replies on “1957: Golden Age of Hi Fi (ladies-of), take two”
I have noticed very few females into high end audio at all and of those nearly none are DIYers, but then the men aren’t either.
Almost every piece of commercially built electronics you own was assembled largely or entirely by females. Anyone who has worked in an electronic plant can’t help but notice that all the assembly/rework department is women, almost all the techs used to be men but that is changing somewhat, and almost all the engineers are men but there are more women now.
Oftentimes the women doing test work will be “test operators” as opposed to technicians meaning they came up through the assembly side and do not have a degree or certificate in electronics. By no means always.
There are an awful lot of ways to process this data. I don’t claim top know what is “correct”, but my thoughts are, one, women don’t want to be engineers very much, two, no one in their right mind wants to be a technician, three, no one wants to pay their dues with tech hobbies that take discipline and investment in tools and time very much anymore.
It’s also worth noting that it’s a lot easier to teach women to shoot, ride horses or motorcycles, fly airplanes, or learn Morse code than it is to teach men, and that the Heathkit company used to test its kits by having women with no electronics experience build them. This always had to be modified because the women would simply follow directions and it would work. Men with some electronics knowledge would then find an infinite number of ways to screw them up and rework would be needed to make them hobbyistproof, a much tougher thing. A little knowledge, and, God forbid, a roll of acid core solder in the house meant certain disaster!
But then again, I think the world of 1962 was a better one than the world we have now, generally speaking. Your mileage may vary.
My mom and dad were both flight instructors and both said the same. Dad lost his medical but Mom still instructs and flies aerobatics in a 450 Stearman. She’s 68.
If I’d been born in 1962 instead of 1978, I’d be dead. I’m alive because of modern leading age medicine, so, I’m grateful for that.
But stylewise, the late fifties and pre-’64 sixties (roughly-the death of Monroe, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the death of JFK were the breakpoints) had it over now in a big way. The cars were cooler, the fashions fashioner, general decorum better all over. At least that’s what I hear from everyone who lived then except a few malcontents. And I drive a ’65 Olds as a daily driver, so go figure.
That’s why “Mad Men” is so popular, and why I build stuff with tubes. Anyone who lets out this “it’s all about the music” is full of horse poop and they know it.
Anyway, that apron is probably from the late 60s or early 70s, a completely different world….and besides, _it’s a joke_. Everyone chuckled but they knew anyone who behaved that way for real was a louse.
The difference between then and now as I remember was that the ugly people were upfront about it. Now they hide.