Overview

This work looks at the way radio programming influenced and was influenced by the United States of the 1920s, 1930s and 1940s, tracing the history of the medium from its earliest years through the advent of television. It places the development of radio within the context of the turmoils of the 1920s - immigration and urbanization, the rise of mass consumer culture, and the changing boundaries of the public and private spheres. Early practices and structures - the role of the announcer, the emergence of program forms from vaudeville, minstrel shows and the concert stage - are examined. Central to the study is a discussion of programmes and their relations to popular cultural understandings of race, ethnicity and gender in the United States of this era. The book explores ""Amos 'n Andy"" and its negotiations of white racial tensions, and ""The rise of the Goldbergs"" and its concern with ethnic assimilation. It reflects upon the daytime serials - the first soap operas - arguing that these much-disparaged programmes provided a space in which women could discuss conflicted issues of gender. Also explored are industry practices, considering the role of advertising agencies and their areas of conflict and co-operation with the emerging networks as well as the impact of World War II on the ""mission"" of radio.

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Reviews

An often evocative study of the sociological impact of the Golden Age of radio. Hilmes (Communication Arts/Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison) notes that the years in which radio was the principal source of American mass entertainment and information have been almost completely forgotten by the public and ignored by academics. She believes that radio had just as much of an impact on the way we live as the frequently studied media of film and television, and her study is an effort to redress this imbalance. Not attempting a complete history, Hilmes has cast the book as a series of interlocking but essentially self-contained essays on such subjects as the radio images of immigrants (Rise of the Goldbergs, etc.), blacks (Amos 'n' Andy), and women (the evolution of daytime programming, etc.). This is intriguing material and Hilmes, an admitted radio buff, appears uniquely suited to present it. However, Radio Voices is uneasily balanced between the more casual voice of popular history, with its entertaining anecdotes and emphasis on vivid personalities, and a more rigorous scholarly tone, with its heavy footnoting of sources and extensive, sometimes ponderous analysis. The more scholarly voice often wins out, and this is unfortunate, because Hilmes is at her best when simply telling the lively stories of such forgotten favorites as Gertrude Berg and Mary Margaret McBride. If her often insightful analyses were couched in the same easy tone, she might have had a book that would appeal to a wider audience than she attempts to reach. There is much to admire here, but pop culture buffs may wish that Hilmes could break her academic chains and speak as directly as the radio voices she so clearly loves. (Kirkus Reviews)

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