Category Archives: 19th century

What’s a ‘batch-i-naylian orgy’? Ask Abby

Posted on March 6, 2012 by Bob Stepno

About half-way through this Cavalcade of America radio profile, a libelous attack on suffragist newspaper publisher Abigail Scott Duniway sends her off to the dictionary to find out more about the lies a competing newspaper has been telling about her. … Continue reading →

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Reporting from a war zone — in Montana

Posted on October 25, 2011 by Bob Stepno

The opening of this “Frontier Gentleman” radio drama from 1958 sounds appropriately like a lead sentence for a newspaper feature story: “The great chief of the Sioux Indians is Sitting Bull. He’s a rather difficult chap to meet, especially when … Continue reading →

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Sabra Cravat, Frontier Editor

Posted on May 17, 2011 by Bob Stepno

In both versions of the movie “Cimarron,” the visual spectacle of the 1889 Oklahoma Land Rush may have stolen the show. But in two radio adaptations, the story all belonged to Irene Dunne‘s portrayal of Sabra Cravat, frontier wife, mother … Continue reading →

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Press Warrior: Richard Harding Davis

Posted on April 10, 2011 by Bob Stepno

The title of this Cavalcade of America wartime episode, “Soldier of a Free Press” (1942), certainly describes Richard Harding Davis, star reporter from the Spanish American War through World War I. The radio broadcast’s brief biography of the most famous … Continue reading →

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Margaret Fuller’s fountain of firsts

Posted on March 26, 2011 by Bob Stepno

Updated: 2014 with a link to a new biography, and shifted to more printable “page” format with editing in 2020, as “Margaret Fuller, The Heart and the Fountain.” Margaret Fuller was an author, the first editor of the transcendentalist magazine … Continue reading →

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Radio marked founding of women’s magazines

Posted on March 19, 2011 by Bob Stepno

I’ve already mentioned Godey’s Lady’s Book here, because Cavalcade of America did an episode about its editor, Sarah Josepha Hale. Here’s a women’s magazine whose name may be more familiar to 21st century readers: Ladies Home Journal. It’s still around … Continue reading →

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Anne Royall, no cure for a “common scold”

Posted on March 8, 2011 by Bob Stepno

By Bob Stepno Start with a national banking scandal (how timely) and add a tough frontier-bred woman editor who keeps her pistols handy — except when lecturing the president of the United States on the pen being mightier than the … Continue reading →

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Nellie Bly on the radio

Posted on March 5, 2011 by Bob Stepno

“1885… Women are coming out of the kitchen and invading fields hitherto considered sacred to the male of the species. One of these fields is the newspaper, and the spearhead of this invasion is a girl with big soulful gray … Continue reading →

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Women’s History: Sarah Josepha Hale on the Radio

Posted on March 3, 2011 by Bob Stepno

Editor of Godey’s Lady’s Book Dupont Cavalcade of America featured historical and biographical programs, many of famous and less well-known reporters, writers and editors of the past, including Sarah Josepha Hale (1788-1879), author, magazine editor and advocate of education for … Continue reading →

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Clark Kent vs. Horace Greeley: Heroic deeds on radio

Posted on February 13, 2011 by Bob Stepno

As mentioned in a separate episode or two, the 1940 radio introduction of Lois Lane had her greeting Clark Kent with a sarcastic remark comparing him to Horace Greeley (1811-1872), one of the previous century’s journalistic superheroes. That got me … Continue reading →

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