The Golden Mike Awards

The Golden Mic Awards are not Google-friendly, the search results are really disambiguation-city. Today one set of Golden Mic awards are given out at the Latin Music Awards in 2015, and another unrelated set of Golden Mics are awarded by MediaCorp in Singapore. The Broadcasters Foundation of America (BOFA) awards their Golden Mics to industry leaders at at annual gala as well. RTNA gave out Golden Mike awards just last year. The New Hampshire Association of Broadcasters (NHAB) did golden mic awards starting in at least 1993 and through about 2010.  The National Religious Broadcasters (NRB) did the same in the early 1990s.   McCalls Magazine was the first publication to use the term, and they started decades ago. I'm surprised they don't get a license fee for use of the name.

The earliest Golden Mic awards were actually "Mike" awards given out by McCall's Magazine starting in 1951, in cooperation with the American Women in Radio and Television (AWRT). All the modern Golden Mics are popularity contests. But McCalls Golden Mike awards had nothing to do with ratings. They granted their awards only to women, and based exclusively on civic engagement, community service, charity, health and safety. Their judges were commissioners of education, presidents of women's clubs, senators, publishers with a refreshing lack of guys from the marketing department. For the 11th annual awards McCalls published this great quote:

"Mccalls is proud to honor the achievements of Mrs Stevenson and her fellow winners, who are actively proving that mediocrity, vapidity, and dull daily dialing are not inevitable on the broadcast  channels of our nation."

The last year the awards were given out by McCalls was in 1965.  I have a 1959 issue of Broadcasting magazine that lists the 8th annual winners. I list those below with those if the first awards in 1951.

• Patti Cavin - WRC Washington, DC
• Ellen Stoutenberg - WIP Philadelphia, PA
• Susie Strother - WJLB Detroit, MI
• Mercer Livermore - WKKO Cocoa, FL
• Marge Miner - KFEQ-TV St. Joseph,  MO
• Sophie Altman - WRC-TV Washington, DC

The winners in 1962 were as follows:

• Rachel Waples Stevenson - WTTW Chicago, IL
• Joyce Marron - KGGM-TV, KABC-TV, KNME-TV Los Angeles, CA
• Valena Minor Williams - WABQ Cleveland, OH
• Nancy Clark - KTVB-TV Boise, ID
• Kitty Broman - WWLP Springfield, MA

With thanks to the Library of the University of Maryland who posted a list from the very first Golden Mike awards in 1951. Those winners were as follows:

• Elizabeth E. Marshall - WBEZ & WIND, Chicago, IL
• Kit Fox - WLW Cincinnati, OH
• Mary St. Clara - WKBB Dubuque, IA
• Edythe J. Messerand - WOR New York, NY
• Bee Baxter - KSOO Sioux Falls, SD
• Helen Faith Keane - WABD-TV New York, NY
• Dorothy Gordon - WQXR New York, NY

I have begun a list of all the awardees, this includes all of the above and all my partial information for other years. Click HERE for more.

The Cradle Time Show

I became aware of this radio program because of a single short article in Jet Magazine; dated to May 21st 1959. In it, Susie Strother displays a New York Golden Mic award. McCall's magazine used to cite civic-minded achievers with these awards in the 1950s and 1960s. Jet noted she was the only "Negro" to win in the eighth annual Golden Mic awards. Her win was recorded in Sponsor Magazine, Broadcasting, New York Age, Jet, and other publications.

Some historians gloss over these home-maker programs but they paved the way for women as hosts, Emcees, DJs, programmers and managers. Susie Strother's success with Cradle Time allowed her to later become the stations first female DJ under the name "Miss Susie."

WJLB-AM signed on as WMBC-AM in 1926 at 250 watts. It became WJLB when it was purchased by John Lord Booth in 1939. Booth debuted WJLB-FM in 1941 signed on at 44.8 MHz testing on that frequency as W49D, simulcasting their AM programming. It was Michigan’s second FM radio station. In 1945 it was assigned 96.5, and the call sign WLOU. Three years later it moved to 97.9 with the new calls, WMZK for it's new beautiful music format. WJLB-AM wasn't "legitimately" an R&B station until the 1960s. Strother's presence on the station was, at least initially, within it's brokered programming. But by 1959 88% of WJLB's programming was black oriented...according to Sponsor magazine. More here.


Cradle Time show was a 10 minute program that ran five days a week. She announced area births on the air and discussed child care with new mothers. Strother won that Golden Mic award for "service to women" for her program which was geared toward mothers, and their newborn babies on WJLB in Detroit. The book Voice Over: The Making of Black Radio by William Barlow confirms what little we know about the program.