Station Identification: A Cultural History of Yiddish Radio in the United States » (1st Edition)

Ari Y. Kelman is Assistant Professor of American Studies at the University of California, Davis.

"Station Identification represents a valuable and unique contribution to radio studies scholarship and to the cultural history of Yiddish in the United States. Ari Y. Kelman unearths the hitherto forgotten 'acoustic community' of Yiddish radio and demonstrates with impressive archival research that the story of Yiddish radio in the U.S. is inextricably woven together with the origins of American broadcasting. Uncanny and haimish, local and national, bilingual and ambivalent, Yiddish radio, like much early broadcasting, is the story of an audience tuning in to hear voices like their own."—Jason Loviglio, author of Radio's
Intimate Public: Network Broadcasting and Mass-Mediated Democracy

"Kelman's lively study offers fascinating evidence of Yiddish radio's monumental importance in forging group ties across time, space, and generational experience."—Derek W. Valliant, author of Sounds of Reform: Progressivism and Music in Chicago, 1873-1935

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Culture of Yiddish Radio

1. From the Mainstream to the Margin, 1920-1929
2. Americanization, Audience, Community, Consumers, 1925-1936
3. Listening to Themselves, 1929-1936
4. An Acoustic Community, 1936-1941
5. At Home on the Air, 1941-1949
6. Listening for Yiddish in Postwar America

Conclusion: Listening Live

Notes Bibliography
Index