The
place, America.
Calvin Coolidge is President.
Alcohol (under "prohibition")
is illegal.
Moonshine stills and
'speakeasies' are prevalent.
Gangster Al Capone is
terrorizing Chicago.
Henry Ford introduces
the Model "A" automobile.
Charles Lindbergh flies
the Atlantic Ocean solo
and becomes a national
hero.
Al Jolson stars in The
Jazz Singer, the first talking film.
The Ku Klux Klan (KKK)
is alive and well.
The radio (following
the first commercial broadcast in 1922)
is wildly popular in
most homes, aided by the "electricity revolution",
which wires most houses
and makes batteries unnecessary.
Duke Ellington, Benny
Goodman, Blind Blake, and Blind Lemon Jefferson
are enjoying the successes
of their first recordings from the previous year.
The Carter Family and
"The Singing Brakeman", ex-railroad worker Jimmie Rodgers,
cut the first country
music records in Bristol, Tennessee.
And in the logging / mining
/ railroad town of Ralston (population approximately 500)
in the Appalachian Mountains
of Pennsylvania,
one Earl "Skip" McLaughlin,
the 25-year old son of a railwayman,
walks into the General
Store and orders
a C.F. Martin & Co.
0-28K model Hawaiian-style guitar.
Here is the story of that guitar.