One evening in March, 1941, Mrs. Pauline Washburh, a greying, grandmotherly Manhattan widow, picked up her telephone and heard a pleasant voice say: "You're the winner of the Pot o' Gold. Congratulations! Your gift of $900 will arrive in 20 minutes."
Mildly amused and mildly amazed, Mrs. Washburn took the $900 from the radio give-away program* and spent it remodeling her brownstone house. It was some time later that she learned from friends how her telephone number had been selected on the radio show through an involved, lottery-like system of wheelspinning. Mrs. Washburn had...
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