How Wendell King Found His Frequency in Erie African American radio engineer met and obliterated the color line by Jonathan Burdick
Union College
It was June of 1917 and the United States was at war. The first American infantry troops had arrived in Europe that month and stateside manufacturers were working around the clock to keep up with wartime demand. In Schenectady, N.Y., the sprawling General Electric plant, which employed 20,000 workers, hired a few dozen students from nearby Union College for the summer. This included Wendell Wilford King, a brilliant 20-year-old North Troy local who had just finished his freshman year studying electrical engineering. Instead of having him work in the yard like most college hires, he was put on a drill press.
It doesn t require liquor, after all, to assure the success of a New Year s celebration, as thousands of Erieites proved Friday night.
The pronouncement by the Erie Dispatch Herald on Jan. 1, 1921, after the first New Year s Eve of Prohibition seemed half-hearted.
But for Erieites in that new year, the continuing prohibition against alcohol was one of just a few clouds on the horizon.
The city was in the midst of a building boom.
Women had voted for the first time in the November presidential election, helping to elect Warren Harding.
Army aviators had flown 9,000 miles from New York to Nome, Alaska, in 111 hours over three months and one week, blazing the way for more postal air service routes.