I decided to continue having fun with Zenith, since it seems to bring out the best in my craft. So far all the Zenith items I’ve ‘drawn’ have turned out nicely, above the standard of other recent output. Write what you know. Write what you love.
Randomly looking through old radio journals for more material, a 1937 issue of Radio Today gave me an unexpected Zenedipity.
Wincharger was founded by Joseph Albers in 1927, then bought by Zenith in 1935 and expanded into a major power in power.
Farms were rapidly electrified in the ’30s, with wind or water or gasoline generators, and most radio makers offered a DC model for farms. Zenith’s dynamic magnate (heh) Commodore McDonald knew that a successful big business builds the system around the product. So Zenith made the farm generators as well as the farm radios. After Zenith failed, Wincharger morphed into Winco, still in business making gas and diesel generators.
Commodore McDonald also knew how to advertise the system:
The Wincharger logo echoes the Zenith logo.
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Here’s the Zenedipity:
Henry Wallace attending a wind power conference, boosting Wincharger and other brands!
Electrifying the farm was a major part of the New Deal, and a major part of Henry Wallace’s mission. Wallace saved this country from starvation, and then got punished by Deepstate when Deepstate reclaimed the country after FDR died. Fortunately Wallace had a fallback plan. After he was viciously thrown out of politics he returned to Pioneer Seed, which he had founded before he went into politics. Pioneer is also still going strong.
Wincharger has an active online forum with pictures from collectors and restorers, who range from Alberta to Argentina. It wasn’t just a midwest thing! The pictures are clear enough for me to ‘build’ a typical Wincharger.
Polistra's Mill 