Meet the Press, the NBC News program that is still going strong today, began on the radio in 1945. It was not until 1948, however, that the
first woman was featured on the show. She was Martha Taft (1891-1958), wife of Senator Robert A. Taft, an activist for the
League of Women Voters, and at the time one of the most quoted women in the country. Other women who were guests early on
in the program include Vivien Kellems (1896-1975), a fiery businesswoman known for her battles against the federal tax system's
discriminatory practices against single people; Elizabeth Bentley (1908-1963), a former Communist Party member and spy who
later collaborated with the FBI; and Judge Dorothy Kenyon (1888-1972), an influential force in the struggle for women's rights
and social reform.
This collection is a treasure trove of appearances by just about every notable American woman from the past fifty years, including
Eleanor Roosevelt, Margaret Chase Smith (1897-1995), Geraldine Ferraro (b. 1935), Elizabeth Dole (b. 1936), Congresswoman
Edna Kelly (1906-1997), and journalist and political activist India Edwards (1895-1990) [picture].
The Library holds most of the Meet the Press radio broadcasts, as well as audio recordings of the television broadcasts that began in 1947. The entire audio collection
spans the period from 1945 to 1984. Programs can be searched by name and date in SONIC, but subject searching is limited.
In addition, an interdivisional online finding aid is being created to allow researchers to access the sound materials as
well as the rest of the Library's Meet the Press materials in the Manuscript Division; Prints and Photographs Division; Moving Image Section of the Motion Picture, Broadcasting
and Recorded Sound Division; and the General Collections.
