This collection contains a Crosley Broadcasting Corporation transcript from the January 30, 1955 broadcast of “Personalities in your government.” The transcript is preceded by typescript correspondence from Gilbert [K.] Kingsbury (Vice President, Public Relations, Crosley Broadcasting Corporation) to “Friend.” The broadcast features Estes Kefauver.
Click here for the Guide to Crosley Broadcasting Corporation Transcript, circa 1955, mpa.339 / ms.1617. Collection location: row 11, box 26.
Powel Crosley, Jr. established a Cincinnati radio statio named WLW. He began broadcasting on WLW in 1922. Eventually the station had the ability to broadcast at 500,000 watts, making it one of the most powerful stations in the world. As such, the United States government used WLW to broadcast the Voice of America during World War Two.
“Personalities in your government” was broadcast on WLW. The program brought its listeners “the authentic background of prominent men and women who today are filling important positions in your national government.”
Estes Kefauver was born in Madisonville, Tennessee on July 26, 1903. He graduated from the University of Tennessee at Knoxville in 1924 before graduating from Yale Law School in 1927. He became a member of the bar in 1926 and practiced in Chattanooga, Tennessee, with his firm, Kefauver, Duggan, and McDonald. In 1935, he married Nancy Patterson Pigott and they eventually had four children.
Three years after a unsuccessful bid for the Tennessee State Senate in 1936, Kefauver served as Tennessee State commissioner of finance and taxation for a few months in 1939 before he was elected to the United States Congress where he served for ten years. In 1948, Kefauver was elected to the Senate where from 1949-1952 he held the position of chairman of the Special Committee on Organized Crime in Interstate Commerce that gained him national fame. Kefauver was an unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic presidential nomination twice in 1952 and 1956. However, he served in the United States Senate as a Democratic representative for Tennessee until his death on August 10, 1963.
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