American Radio History : Resources on the Web

One of the most famous radio broadcast collections in the world, comprised of scripts, recordings, and more.

Holds resources for the American Jewish Committee (AJC) radio broadcasts from 1939-present.

Under "More browse options" (next to the green arrow,) you can choose an option to browse collections containing "Sound recordings" -- this will limit your results. you can also search within "Sound recordings" for "radio" to look at those specific results.

Database of and index to 5000 full text, audio and video versions of public speeches, sermons, legal proceedings, lectures, debates, interviews, other recorded media events. To search for radio broadcasts, click Site Search and search "radio speech", "radio broadcast" or "radio address".

More than 20,000 tracks available online. Under "Browse", choose from many different genres, including Radio Commercial, Radio Documentary Series, Radio Program and Radio Show.

Designed as an expansive repository of aural resources, the purpose of Historical Voices is to create a significant, fully searchable online database of spoken word collections spanning the 20th century - the first large-scale repository of its kind.

A useful page organized alphabetically by first letter of the keywords applied ("Orson Wells" under "O"; "Jimmy Durante" under "J", etc.). Some of the keywords may be decades ("1950's") and can be viewed that way too.

To search for "Radio Broadcasts" from this page, select "Miscellany" >> "Radio Broadcast". You can also search "radio broadcast" (in quotes) as a keyword from the search box at the top right of the page.

This page holds links, by decade (from 1922-1959), with radio commercials, beginning in the 1920's when the first commercial stations with regularly scheduled broadcasts were heard. Also features audio of broadcasting job advertisements and sponsor promotions.

Pacifica Radio pre-dates NPR as a listener-supported radio station. Best known as a chronicler of social justice movements and cultural change.

This site features information and audio files for such genres of Old Time Radio as "mystery", "radio news", "comedy", and "sci-fi". Links to specific shows are also provided (i.e., "Captain Midnight").

This page has links to sermons broadcasted by churches across the United States, organized by church name (not by state). Videocamera icons designate sermon audio/video/PDFs files.

Includes both audio-only and audio-visual results.

To search for radio media, select "Radio" from the
"Category" drop-down; to search for radio advertisements, select "Radio Advertising". Strong search terms for "Radio" could be "deejay" or "interview"; strong search terms for "Radio Advertising" could be "Cadillac" or "special".

Mostly fictional shows and entertainment, also includes "The Bob Hope Show" and "The Bing Crosby Show".

The finest radio drama of the 1930's was The Mercury Theatre on the Air, a show featuring the acclaimed New York drama company founded by Orson Welles and John Houseman. In its brief run, it featured an impressive array of talents, including Agnes Mooreheadm Bernard Herrmann, and George Coulouris. The show is famous for its notorious War of the Worlds broadcast, but the other shows in the series are relatively unknown. The show first broadcast on CBS and CBC in July 1938. It ran without a sponsor until December of that year, when it was picked up by Campbell's Soup and renamed The Campbell Playhouse. This site has many of the surviving shows, including: "Tale of Two Cities", "Treasure Island", "The Count of Monte Cristo", "Dracula", and "Mutiny on the Bounty". Audio is available as MP3 and RealAudio.

HPOL materials range from formal addresses delivered in public settings to private telephone conversations conducted from the innermost recesses of the White House. This resource has a searchable and browseable collection of audio files, primarily between 1960-1979. The earliest files in the collection relate to Franklin Delano Roosevelt. If you click "Search", select "Transcript" from the dropdown menu, and enter "radio" into the search field, you get a few results with linked audio.

The Audio/Video Archive of the American Presidency Project holds speeches and remarks (radio and otherwise) by Presidents Hoover, Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and George W. Bush. In the searchable document archive, you can choose from several "Document Type" choices, including "Farewell" (some, not all, radio content), "Saturday Radio" (Reagan, George Bush, Clinton, George W. Bush, Obama), "Fireside Chat", and "Oral remarks - (non-categorized)" (do a "find" for the word "radio" to see miscellaneous recordings available).

This is the full listing of Old Time Radio recordings available for purchase -- including such DVD MP3 sets as "Complete Offshore Pirate Radio Broadcasts Collection", "Bloopers, Outtakes and Off-Moments Radio & Television Madness", ; "The 1938 War of the Worlds Radio Broadcast", and the "Complete Information Please Quiz Show Series Old Time Radio." Some of these recordings are also available at Penn; check franklin.library.upenn.edu. See also: the "American Radio Megasets on DVD" box in the "Resources at Penn" tab. If a recording is not available here, you can also request it via Interlibrary Loan.

Addresses the history of radio and radio broadcasting in the United States. Written by Susan J. Douglas and distributed by the University of Michigan Library.

From this page you can view the Old Time Radio collection sorted in various ways (recent additions, number of downloads, average review rating), as well as browse by collection, subject/keyword, creator, and date.

The OTRR Group is a community of enthusiastic fans, avid listeners, and strong supporters of "Old Time Radio". The group's goals include restoring, preserving, and sharing the classic shows from what is commonly known as the "Golden Age of Radio" (1930-1960).

This page holds radio ratings for radio's most popular programs of the Golden Age. You can choose to view either "1930 - 1956 top shows, by season" OR "Top Shows, by network". The Radio Commercials link is also worth exploring.