A snapshot of the programs and broadcasts of the NBC for 1932, including a brief history of the organization, program statistics, major broadcasting events and milestones, and hints about the future of the company.

"An Account of the Organization, Operation and Employee-Company Policies of the National Broadcasting Company, Designed as a Handbook to Aid You in Your Daily Work."

From Performing Arts at the Library of Congress: Broadcasting, Miller's article provides a history of the early days of NBC radio and an overview of the NBC Radio Collection at the Library. A digitized copy is available in the Hathi Trust Digital Library External.

An NBC publication describing the responsibilities of the organization to the public in terms of the content and variety of programming.

The Original Amateur Hour was a variety contest that aired on NBC, first as a radio program hosted by Major Edward Bowes and later on television hosted by Ted Mack. The paper materials of the Original Amateur Hour Collection contain over 7,000 applications from performers seeking to be featured on the show; administrative materials including correspondence, scripts, and program information; and photographs from the 1940s and 1950s. A research guide on Amateur Hour materials at the Library is also available.

German-born Walter Damrosch (1862-1950) emigrated to the United States in 1871. He was the son of the early Metropolitan Opera conductor Leopold Damrosch and brother of conductor Frank Damrosch. Walter Damrosch was an important figure in turn-of-the-century New York's musical life. He was an assistant conductor at the Metropolitan Opera (1885-1891), New York Oratorio Society music director (1885-1898), and music director of the New York Symphony Society (1885-1903). He was also known as a music educator and as a champion of American composers. As a musical advisor to the newly created NBC radio network in 1927, he conducted a weekly series of music appreciation hours for schools and colleges from 1928 to 1942. This collection contains literary works, correspondence, holograph scores, and printed scores. There are two other Damrosch Family collections in the Music Division: the Damrosch-Tee Van Collection, 1856-1969, and the Mannes-Damrosch Collection, 1848-1986.

The papers of John William "Johnny" Carson (1925-2005) consist of reports, scripts, correspondence, and production files of the "Tonight Show Starring Johnny Carson" on the NBC Television Network. The papers comprise one series reflecting Carson's affiliation with the show for the period October 1970 to May 1992.

The Carson Papers document each night's show and the production material pertaining to guest interviews. Typed index cards contain introductory comments for use by Carson or a substitute host related to each guest. Linked to these cue cards are typed commentaries prepared by researchers from preliminary interviews with a guest outlining areas of interest to be discussed. Also with the file for each show is a listing of commercials, skits, guests, and network pauses in the sequence they occurred. A "Broadcast Standards Acceptability" report includes the names of guests, the host, sponsors, personalities and commercial products mentioned, and references which were censored and edited. The report expanded from an outline in the 1970s to a more comprehensive review during the 1980s, especially after 1988. Comments by Carson, though rare, are penciled on the reverse of the show's cue cards. Files for shows aired January-June 1976 and January-April 1991 are missing. In 1971, Carson reduced his appearances from five to four nights a week and in the late 1970s to three or four nights a week plus extended vacation periods.

Comedy skits from the show are available in their entirety, often based on current political themes or topical personalities. Letters from the viewing public to Carson or his producers focus on remarks made by guests or the cast or on specific situations. A show receiving wide attention from the viewing audience aired on 4 December 1972 with guest Don Ho, a singer-entertainer from Hawaii. Other correspondence concerns requests for guest appearances and complaints from agents. A wide range of individuals appeared as guests. Stage, screen, and television personalities predominated, but journalists, singers, writers, sports figures, scientists, politicians, comedians, and other celebrities also appeared. Guests included Joey Bishop, Helen Gurley Brown, George Carlin, Charo, Billy Crystal, Bob Hope, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Vincent Price, Charles Nelson Reilly, and Joan Rivers. Guest hosts included Joey Bishop, David Brenner, Jay Leno, David Letterman, Jerry Lewis, Bob Newhart, Joan Rivers, and McLean Stevenson.

The papers of Lawrence Edmund Spivak (1900-1994) span the years 1917-1994, with the bulk of the items concentrated in the period 1945-1983. Spivak was co-creator, co-producer, and long-time host of NBC's Meet the Press, and the collection reflects a career that involved magazine publishing as well as the production of radio and television programs. Included are correspondence, radio and television transcripts, articles, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, printed ephemera, and memoranda. The papers are divided into the following series: Personal File, Speech File, Writings File, American Mercury, Inc., File, "Meet the Press" File, Special Programs File, Miscellany, Scrapbooks, Addition, and Oversize.

Part I of the papers of long-time NBC news correspondent Irving Raskin Levine (1922-2009) span the years 1945-1964, with the bulk concentrated in the period 1949-1964. The majority of the items document Levine's early career as a foreign correspondent during the Cold War in which he reported on major news events and the economic, political, and social development of countries on four continents. In 1957 Levine was the first American television network correspondent with permanent accreditation in the Soviet Union; prior to that time American television reporters were allowed into the USSR only for brief periods. Part II of the Irving R. Levine Papers spans the years 1930-1995, with the majority of the papers concentrated in the period 1971-1994. The papers supplement files in Part I and pertain principally to Levine's career as chief economics correspondent for NBC News in Washington, D.C. A pioneer in economics reporting on television, in 1971 Levine became the first network correspondent to cover economics on a full-time basis.

The papers of Sidney (Sid) Caesar (1922-2014) span the period 1950-1963 and focus primarily on his two most popular television series, "Your Show of Shows" and "Caesar's Hour." The papers consist mainly of annotated scripts for the live programs which aired on NBC. Both shows were acclaimed for the comedic talents of Caesar and his fellow performers as well as for the writing staff which went on to have successful careers in the theater, motion pictures, and television.

The "Your Show of Shows" series contains scripts for this ninety-minute weekly variety show, produced by Max Liebman, which ran from 1950 to 1954 and consisted of original comedy as well as music and dance. The stars of the program were Sid Caesar and Imogene Coca, with a supporting cast of Carl Reiner and Howard Morris and a weekly guest star who served as host or hostess. Writers for the series included Mel Brooks, Lucille Kallen, Neil Simon, and Mel Tolkin. Scripts contain annotations for air times and cameras, as well as texts of commercials. Many files also contain playbills for the live performances. These files are incomplete as indicated by gaps in the program numbers on the container list.

The "Caesar's Hour" series contains program files for Caesar's hour-long series, similar in format to "Your Show of Shows," which ran from 1954 to 1957. The supporting cast for this program included Carl Reiner, Howard Morris, Nanette Fabray, and Janet Blair. Writers included Mel Brooks, Selma Diamond, Larry Gelbart, Shelly Keller, Mike Stewart, and Neil Simon and featured sketches were "The Commuters" and "The Professor." The files include the director's air scripts annotated with camera shots and set diagrams, "as performed" scripts on which improvisations and other changes are noted, and production files which contain annotated scripts, timings, schedules, costume and prop lists, and playbills.

Mary Margaret McBride was a prolific broadcast journalist who hosted radio shows on NBC throughout the 1940s and 1950s. The papers of Mary Margaret McBride (1899-1976) span the years 1926-1975 and consist of correspondence, writings, radio broadcast material, printed matter, clippings, and miscellaneous items. The correspondence is personal and professional with the largest grouping comprised of responses to an article by McBride concerning her friend and manager Estella H. Karn for the January 1962 issue of Reader's Digest. The writings feature articles by McBride and others as well as some AP Newsfeatures. The radio broadcasts consist primarily of descriptions of her broadcasts by others. A miscellany file includes biographical material, photographs, programs primarily for events in which McBride participated, followed by printed matter and clippings, which comprise about one-half of the papers. The Recorded Sound Section holds recordings of McBride in the NBC Radio Collection as well as in the Mary Margaret McBride Collection (both of which can be searched in SONIC).

The radio scripts of Fred Allen (1894-1956) span the years 1934-1949 and consist of copyright deposits of radio scripts and broadcasts for Town Hall Tonight, The Chesterfield Supper Club, the Jack Benny Show, Bing Crosby Show, Bob Hope Show and Henry Morgan Show, and Talullah Bankhead's program, The Big Show. The collection is arranged by date of copyright.

The radio scripts of Paul Rhymer (1905-1964) span the years 1934-1944 and consist of playscripts of Vic and Sade submitted to the Library of Congress for copyright deposit during that period. The Vic and Sade radio series, sponsored by Proctor and Gamble, aired as a daytime comedy on the National Broadcasting Company from November 1934 to December 1945 and won many awards, including one for best written program on the radio in 1936.

Images from 1,462 Meet the Press shows are included in this collection. The majority of the photographs depict guests, panels of journalists, producers Lawrence Spivak and Martha Rountree, and moderators Rountree, Spivak, Ned Brooks, and others posed on the set of the Meet the Press show. Some images show production equipment, backstage scenes, and views of the audience. Also includes some publicity photographs of guests. Guests include national and international figures such as heads of state, presidential candidates, members of Congress, mayors, governors, cabinet officers, civil rights leaders, labor leaders, economists, ambassadors, physicians, as well as cultural and sports figures.

Maps, partly in color, 28 x 22 cm.
Request in the Geography and Maps Reading Room.

The Motion Picture, Broadcasting, and Recorded Sound Division is excited to release a finding aid for the Bob Hope Collection, completed in late 2018. The Bob Hope papers encompass the breadth of Hope's career in motion pictures, broadcasting, recorded sound, and live entertainment. The papers include jokes, monologues, speeches, scripts, press releases, newspaper clippings, scrapbooks, publications, correspondence, business papers, and thousands of photographs. The collection is now available to researchers through the Recorded Sound Research Center.

A prolific playwright associated with the NBC radio program Lights Out, Arch Oboler’s career as author, radio and stage playwright and director, and movie script writer and director spanned some sixty years, from the late 1920s to the 1980s. Included in his papers is his accumulation of correspondence, legal, business, and personal files, and manuscript and other materials related to his vast creative output in different media. Almost all of the scripts from his radio programs in the 1930s and 1940s, including the Lights Out series, are preserved in multiple copies, some with handwritten annotated cues and notes. Amply documented in the papers are most of the films on which Oboler worked as writer, director, or producer, including his greatest commercial success, the 1952 3-D movie Bwana Devil. As is the case with other Oboler films, among the Bwana Devil documents are business and legal papers, promotional and production documents, and movie stills and photographs of filming.

Oboler’s prolific creative output continued into the 1960s and beyond, when he made several feature films which are documented in the papers. He also wrote and published books, magazine articles, and short stories, and wrote, produced, and directed an unsuccessful Broadway play, the Night of the Auk. Numerous book and short story manuscripts and television and film scripts with reworked and original plots are included in the Oboler papers, as are materials related to commercial LP record and cassette tape releases of some of his famous early radio plays.

Major correspondents include Bette Davis, Aaron Green (San Francisco architect), Boris Karloff, anthropologist Louis Leakey, Gene Masselink (an associate of Frank Lloyd Wright), William Wesley Peters (an associate of Frank Lloyd Wright), Frank Lloyd Wright, Olgivanna Lloyd Wright (Frank Lloyd Wright's wife), and Iovanna Lloyd Wright (the Wrights's daughter).

This collection consists of photographs and accompanying paper documents that form part of the much larger Mary Margaret McBride Collection in the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division of the Library of Congress. The collection represents McBride's long and influential career as a journalist and pioneering woman radio personality; photographs show McBride, some of her guests, program anniversary events, and featured places and products.

This finding aid does not describe the audio materials in the Mary Margaret McBride Collection. Recordings of McBride in both this collection and the NBC Radio Collection are cataloged in SONIC.

The Allen Prescott Collection consists of sound recordings, photographs, and printed materials pertaining to Prescott’s career as a radio personality during the early 1930s to 1970. Included in the collection are recordings from Prescott’s radio programs, manuscript materials, publicity photographs, and two 16mm films (which are located in the Moving Image Section of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division).

The paper materials date from 1930 to 1968, with the bulk of the materials dating from 1933 to 1948. The collection contains correspondence, fan mail, radio scripts, newspaper clippings, and scrapbooks. It also includes an unpublished novel, short stories, manuscript submissions to publishers, and an interview with Steve Allen, the entertainer.

When I Love a Mystery debuted in 1939, Carlton E. Morse was quite well known as the writer, director, and producer of the popular radio serial One Man's Family. One Man's Family became one of the longest-running American radio soap operas, broadcasting 3,256 episodes from 1932 to 1959. I Love a Mystery, which Morse also wrote, directed, and produced, aired until 1952. Morse created other radio serials including I Love Adventure, China Town Squad, Adventures by Morse, Family Skeleton, and His Honor, the Barber. The Carlton E. Morse Script Collection, spanning the years 1939 to 1952, consists of photocopies of radio scripts, a few with annotations. It includes four Adventures by Morse scripts, forty-seven I Love a Mystery scripts, and thirteen I Love Adventure scripts, for a total of sixty-four scripts in 105 folders.