Our History

We are a 501(c)(3) non-profit incorporated as the National Museum of Broadcasting. Over the past 25 years, we have been investigating and collecting artifacts from the history of broadcasting with the idea of starting a museum about radio. As this website attests, our ambition has grown over the years and we now want to show how broadcasting was only the opening act for the much larger story of mass electronic media.

Our prize possession is the Wilkinsburg workshop-garage (on the left in photo) of Frank Conrad, the Westinghouse engineer and amatuer broadcaster who was chiefly responsible for putting KDKA on the air. We saved the garage from the wrecking ball 20 years ago and stored it safely in a warehouse. We intend to reconstruct the garage adjacent to the center’s main building and restore it to the way it was in 1920 as a testament to Conrad and his great contributions to radio.

Among our benefactors: Pittsburgh native Mark Cuban, the late radio executive Ralph Guild, the PNC Foundation, the Pennsylvania Association of Broadcasters and Visit Monroeville.