About (overview) | Fall 2012 Course (and related books)| Author | The pictures | Sources
by Bob Stepno
Listening to radio, 1920-1950 / Ray Barfield ; foreword by M. Thomas Inge
Author: Barfield, Ray E
Pub Info Westport, Conn. : Praeger, 1996
At Radford: Main Collection – Level 4 PN1991.3.U6 B37 1996
Radio Voices, American Broadcasting, 1920-1952. Michele Hilmes. University of Minnesota press, 1997.
The great radio soap operas
Author: Jim Cox
Publisher: Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland, ©1999.
Fireside politics : radio and political culture in the United States, 1920-1940
Author: Douglas B Craig
Publisher: Baltimore : Johns Hopkins University Press, ©2000.
Inventing American Broadcasting 1899-1922. Author: Susan J Douglas. The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1987.
Listening in : radio and the American imagination : from Amos ‘n’ Andy and Edward R. Murrow to Wolfman Jack and Howard Stern. Author: Susan J Douglas. Publisher: New York, N.Y. : Times Books, 1999.
On the air : the encyclopedia of old-time radio
Author: John Dunning
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press, 1998.
Private Eyelashes: Radio’s Lady Detectives
Author: Jack French
Publisher: Boalsburg, PA : BearManor Media, 2004.
The Green Hornet : a history of radio, motion pictures, comics, and television
Author: Martin Grams; Terry G G Salomonson
Publisher: Churchville, MD : OTR Pub., ©2010.
Lux presents Hollywood : a show-by-show history of the Lux radio theatre and the Lux video theatre, 1934-1957, by Connie J. Billips & Arthur Pierce; Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland & Co., 1995.
Radio drama : a comprehensive chronicle of American network programs, 1932-1962
Author: Martin Grams
Publisher: Jefferson, N.C. : McFarland, ©2000.
Radio’s America : the Great Depression and the rise of modern mass culture
Author: Bruce Lenthall
Publisher: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2007.
Empire of the air : the men who made radio
Author: Tom Lewis
Publisher: New York : E. Burlingame Books, ©1991.
The A to Z of old time radio
Author: Robert C Reinehr; Jon David Swartz
Publisher: Lanham, MD : Scarecrow Press, 2010, ©2008.
Super heroes : a modern mythology
Author: Richard Reynolds
Publisher: Jackson : University Press of Mississippi, 1994.
Points on the dial : golden age radio beyond the networks
Author: Alexander Russo
Publisher: Durham, [N.C] : Duke University Press, 2010.
Stay tuned : a concise history of American broadcasting
Author: Christopher H Sterling; John M Kittross
Publisher: Belmont, Calif : Wadsworth, 1990.
Handbook of old-time radio : a comprehensive guide to golden age radio listening and collecting
Author: Jon David Swartz; Robert C Reinehr
Publisher: Metuchen, N.J. : Scarecrow Press, 1993.
Radio’s golden years : the encyclopedia of radio programs, 1930-1960
Author: Vincent Terrace
Publisher: San Diego : A.S. Barnes ; London : Tantivy Press, ©1981.
Martin Grams Jr.‘s blog and books on numerous old-time radio series, including The Green Hornet: A History of Radio, Motion Pictures, Comics, and Television, with Terry Salomonson, and The History of the Cavalcade of America.
Jim Ramsburg’s GOldTime Radio, including details on ratings, sponsors, cast and networks, and his book Network Radio Ratings, 1932-1953: A History of Prime Time Programs Through The Ratings of Hooper, Crossley and Nielsen.
Michael & Edwin Emery, The press and America an interpretive history of the mass media, Prentice Hall, 7th ed. 1992.
Jean Folkerts, Dwight Teeter Jr., Edward Caudill, Voices of a Nation, a history of mass media in the United States. 5th edition, Allyn & Bacon, 2009.
Mitchell Stephens, A History of News, Oxford University Press, Third Edition, 2007.
Mitchell Stephens, The Rise of the Image the Fall of the Word, Oxford University Press, 1998.
Jay David Bolter and Richard Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media, MIT Press, 1999.
More sources of books and periodicals:
- See “Reference shelf” section of Museum of Broadcast Communications encyclopedia of radio
- World Radio History, a huge online collection of broadcast industry publications
- The periodical archives, OTRRpedia and other resources at the Old Time Radio Researchers Group
- Scanned industry magazines and annuals at American Radio History
- Elizabeth McLeod’s Broadcast History Resources
- For newspaper stories to confirm or compare with various “true story” radio dramatizations, I rely heavily on Google’s newspaper archive, the Library of Congress Digital Newspaper Project and Chronicling America (1836-1922), NewspaperArchive.com collection, and various Proquest Historical Newspapers collections.
Newspaper Heroes on the Air 