[Thursday] Latest RI Find

[Chris Prata]

I've mentioned before that my grandfather owned a battery shop in the 1920s 
in Olneyville or Federal Hill if I recall correctly. He rebuilt batteries 
and delivered them to tenement houses etc. so they could power their radios 
etc.

I can only wonder which battery shop if any of them in this book may have 
been his.  The battery shop was owned by somebody else and he worked there 
part-time and he told me the owner "ran off with a girl" and he just kept 
it going and eventually took it over. But our families main business 
eventually took him away from that.

he told me all about rebuilding the batteries and melting the zinc and the 
lead on a gas stove, pouring the tar to seal up the box after reloading it 
with new plates and soldering the straps, and adding acid and then 
delivering the batteries with I think he said a model t that had heavy 
springs under the back.  the battery boxes were made of wood so I wonder 
what the liner was, I don't recall that.

Only battery shops that also sold radio parts were listed in that book and 
he never mentioned anything about radio parts.

I wonder if the city has archives of businesses in their licensing archives 
that may contain information about this battery shop. But I don't know if 
it was ever formally put in his name either...

Maybe I'll check it out someday because if the battery shop can be 
identified, then it's possible there are street photos possibly also in the 
city archives that may show it...


On February 10, 2020 10:25:00 AM Arzoo623 WebRight via Thursday 
<thursday at newsm.org> wrote:
> Found the following Rhode Island Radio Fan Handbook from January 1925. 
> These types of finds open up a wealth of leads to other Rhode Island Radio 
> history.
>
> http://61thriftpower.com/riradio/pdf/RIRFHBJanuary1924_compressed.pdf
>
>
> Len
>
> Sent from my iPhone
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> Thursday at host194.hostmonster.com
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