This is one of my favorite pictures from the early days of television. Ray Forrest was assigned to cover the 1940 GOP Convention in Philadelphia. The convention was being broadcast back to New York over one of the first television networks, which was run by a very long wire and scotch tape, powered by a tag team of mice running around a wire wheel.
Ray, being NBC’s (actually WNBT)’s first and only announcer got the anchor job, which meant he was also station’s sole reporter, host and, as you can see, pollster/number cruncher. Here he is at the station’s very high-tech tote board. Click on the photo to enlarge it.
