History

Some of the materials and methods described in this article have been used for many centuries, although they were not called "audio-visual." Others, such as tape recorders and television, are 20th-century developments. A pioneer in the effort to improve learning by sensory methods was John Amos Comenius, a 17th-century Moravian bishop who was one of the first to prepare an illustrated textbook for children.

In 1904 the public schools of St. Louis, Missouri, started the first city-wide audio-visual instruction program in the United States. During World War II audio-visual methods were widely used in training recruits in the armed forces. The success of these wartime methods stimulated the use of audio-visual materials in many fields in the postwar period.

The use of audio-visual materials was soon widespread in business and the armed forces, but less so in educational institutions because of limited budgets, the logistics of ordering and returning materials, and the lack of facilities for storing the materials.

By the beginning of the late 20th century, audio-visual equipment such as video tape recorders, which provide learning activities as well as entertainment, became affordable to individuals and families. As purchases of this equipment for the home increased, so did the number of items created specifically for the home market, such as instructional (or "how-to") videocassettes.