| WOR Collection
Another major radio collection in the Library of Congress is that of WOR-AM, New York City. In 1984 RKO General, Inc., donated
the complete archives of the flagship station of the Mutual Broadcasting Network. This collection offers thousands of hours
of programming (ca. 15,000 discs), and, like the NBC Collection, contains a diverse array of genres, including news, documentaries,
musical variety, dramas, comedies, soap operas, quiz shows, and information.
The collection includes the Martha Deane show, one of the first talk shows for women and a precursor to Mary Margaret McBride's show (Martha Deane programs can also
be found in the Cynthia Lowry/Mary Margaret McBride and NBC Collections, and span—including those in all three collections—the
period from about 1934 to 1953). McBride was actually the first of several different women to play the grandmotherly character.
Even after McBride left to start her own show, Martha Deane continued to be very popular into the 1970s.
Columnist Dorothy Kilgallen (1913-1965) and model and movie star Jinx Falkenburg (b. 1919), both part of husband-wife radio
teams, appeared with their spouses on breakfast shows during which they conducted interviews, dished up the latest Broadway
gossip, and discussed current events.
The manuscript portion of the WOR donation is being processed by the division for public use. Of particular interest are scripts
and papers relating to writer and producer Phillips H. Lord's programs, including Gang Busters (1937-53), which featured crime stories based on FBI files, and Policewoman (1946-47), which was based on the life of New York City policewoman Mary Sullivan. The archive also includes scripts for
many of the radio adaptations of books by Kathleen Norris (1880-1966).
The WOR broadcasts are searchable by program title in a published finding aid available in the Recorded Sound Reference Center.
They are gradually being preserved and cataloged in the Library's online catalog.
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