Scope and Content Note

This collection features roughly 1, 500 publicity photographs of wartime radio personalities, including Fred Allen, Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen, and Abbott and Costello. The entertainers are often pictured promoting war conservation and recycling, or broadcasting from bases around the world. ABC, CBS, NBC, WOR-Mutual, and WEVD are among the networks represented. NBC "Helpmate" actors are pictured purchasing war bonds above their regular quotas; in the drive to sell war bonds, the actors bought bonds each time the Allies bombed Berlin. There is also a series of photographs showing radio employees picking up short wave communications at the "listening post," which were then transmitted to the News Room. Overall, this collection documents the impact not only of radio on troop morale but also of the war itself on home front entertainment.