First Lady of Radio (eBook)

Eleanor Roosevelt's Historic Broadcasts

Stephen Smith (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2014
272 Seiten
The New Press (Verlag)
978-1-62097-049-2 (ISBN)

Infos

On the afternoon of December 7, 1941, as a stunned nation gathered around the radio to hear the latest about Pearl Harbor, Eleanor Roosevelt was preparing for her weekly Sunday evening national radio program. At 6:45pm, listeners to the NBC Blue network heard the First Ladys calm, measured voice explain that the president was conferring with his top advisors to address the crisis. It was a remarkable broadcast. With America on the verge of war, the nation heard first not from their president, but from his wife. Eleanor Roosevelt's groundbreaking career as a professional radio broadcaster is almost entirely forgotten. As First Lady, she hosted a series of prime time programs that revolutionized how Americans related to their chief executive and his family. Now, The First Lady of Radio rescues these broadcasts from the archives, presenting a carefully curated sampling of transcripts of Roosevelt's most famous and influential radio shows, edited and set into context by award-winning author and radio producer Stephen Drury Smith. With a foreword by Roosevelt's famed biographer, historian Blanche Wiesen Cook, The First Lady of Radio is both a historical treasure and a fascinating window onto the power and the influence of a pioneering First Lady.

Autor

lt;div>Stephen Drury Smith is the executive editor and host of American RadioWorks (ARW). He is also the host of NPR's Bright Ideas. Smith and ARW have been awarded the duPont-Dolumbia University Fold and Silver Batons. Smith is the co-editor of three books—Say it Plain, Say it Loud, and After the Fall—all available from The New Press. He lives in St. Paul, Minnesota. Blanche Wiesen Cook is Distinguished Professor of History at John Jay College in the City University of New York and the author of Eleanor Roosevelt. She lives in New York City.