Invisible Stars: A Social History of Women in American Broadcasting »

"The early years of American broadcasting seem to be an exclusively white male preserve, but broadcast historian Donna Halper documents the countless contributions made by women in this field since its earliest days. This artful social history considers our culture's expectations of women and how those expectations changed throughout the twentieth century, how the advent of television changed the landscape of employment opportunities for women in broadcasting, and how both television and radio communicate about gender roles. Invisible Stars brings the stories of key people like Bertha Brainard (one of the first women on the air in New York - and the first woman executive at NBC), Dorothy Thompson (the first woman in radio to make the cover of Time), influential talk show host Mary Margaret McBride, and many others to their proper prominence."--BOOK JACKET.

About the Author:
Donna Lee Halper is an adjunct professor at Emmerson College in Boston in the Journalism Department. Ms. Halper is a well-known radio consultant, with over twenty-five years in broadcasting. She has written two other books, as well as a number of magazine and journal articles. An experienced broadcast historian, she has been a guest lecturer at numerous colleges and is one of the editors of the "Boston Radio Archives." When not teaching or writing, she is a Big Sister and she tutors immigrants in English as a second language.

Booknews

To expose modern students of broadcast history to a large chapter left out of most accounts of early radio, Halper (journalism, Emerson College, Boston) tracked down and interviewed living relatives, gathered rare photos and letters, and scoured early newspapers and magazines to reconstruct the lives and work of women in broadcasting decade by decade since the 1920s. She appends biographical sketches of many of the women she discusses. Annotation c. Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Foreword
Introduction
1. The Early 1920s: The Radio Adventure Begins
2. The Late 1920s: A Time of Contradictions
3. The 1930s: The Women Behind the Men
4. The 1940s: Visible for a While
5. The 1950s: Forward into the Past
6. The 1960s and 70s: And When It Changed
7. And Now What? The Rest of the Story
Appendix
Notes
Selected Bibliography and Suggested Readings
Index