Radio: History & Headaches

With the idea that one way to defend civilized activity is to persist in it, CBS’s educational division planned a series of talks by U.S. historians (Tuesday afternoons 4:15 to 4:30 E.W.T.). Since most weekday, daytime radio fare might be called appealing but could hardly be called instructive, the idea seemed fair enough. Of the headaches involved:

One was pedagogical: the U.S. housewife is not likely to get a sense of history from one earful a week.

One was personal: some historians, like Cornell’s brilliant Carl Becker, refused to broadcast.

A third was pure misfortune: the first speaker, Columbia’s Professor Carlton J. H. Hayes, fell ill.

A fourth was technical: Historian Henry Steele Commager, who consented to start the series last week, read his paper too rapidly, with too mealy a mouth.*

*Avoiding historians, housewives and production difficulties, NBC has stuck to a weekly evening talk on historical backgrounds by an oldtime radio newsman, Cesar Saerchinger (Sunday 11:15 p.m. E.W.T.).