Everett Mitchell

I only realized recently that I'd written about Everett Mitchell four separate times and never covered his career. I recognized the name when I bumped into a copy of the book Radio's Beautiful Day: Everett Mitchell's Memoirs of the First Fifty Years of Broadcasting in America by Richard Crabb. He's one of those historical characters who stood too close to bigger and more flamboyant people who overshadowed him. Maybe he didn't have a good publicist.

Everett Mitchell is most famous for his tenure on the National Farm and Home Hour, a NBC program that was on air from 1928 to 1958. Mitchell joined the program in 1932. His trademark line was "It's a beautiful day in Chicago!" He had joined the program after a short whirlwind tenure as a radio singer. He sang on WQJ-AM, WEBH-AM, and WHT-AM all in the Chicago area. WQJ was a short-lived dayshare with WMAQ which was bought out by the latter in bought them out in 1927. WEBH was a short-lived dayshare with WDAP that operated from 1923 to 1928. WHT only was on air from 1926 to 1927. By all appearances that doesn't add up to much experience, but he was also on WENR-AM. More here.

He'd made a small name for himself as a gospel singer, in radio he'd become a lot more. In Mitchells' few biographies it is said that he was first on air in 1923. Most of them fail to note the call letters though it was certainly KYW-AM. The station he would later manage, WENR-AM... signed on a year later. He became it's manager in 1925, he was only 27 years old.

At WENR he had a number of uncorroborated radio firsts: prayer services, holiday programming, children's programming, and what might actually be first first educational program The Air Scouts. Three years later Samuel Insull paid a million dollar for the station. But Insull was in serious money trouble by 1930 and NBC bought the station off him. the great depression had hit him hard, and cleaned out Mitchell as well. the sale was a boon to both. NBC considered Mitchell to be just as valuable as WENR, and put Mitchell in the host chair of National Farm and Home Hour. He stayed with the program for 3 decades.

The Farm Hour was cut to just a small local program called the Farm Forum then incorporated as part of another program Town and Farm. In 1967 the USDA's Great Service to America Award. his replacement Jerry Mitchell (no relation) continued to host Town and Farm for a couple more years. Everett retired that year with his wife to Wheaton, Illinois where he died in 1990.

Spareribs' Blackface Children's Stories

Malcolm Claire had a one man show as "Uncle Mal" on WLS-AM reading children's stories. His only accompaniment was an organist named Irma Glen (sometimes written as Irma Glynn.) She also worked at WENR. A 1938 radio schedule lists him on WENR as well. The two stations operated under a share time agreement from 1925 until they finally merged in 1954. More here.

The Uncle Mal program was carried on NBC Monday through Friday airing at 5:15 EST. the program was so popular he was able to publish branded collections of stories almost every year from 1939 to 1946. His titles included Tune-in Tales, Tune-in Again, Story Time, Little Lord Fauntleroy, Always New Tales, and others. The book The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio list him as variously active from 1931 - 1940.

According to an article in a 1939 issue of Radio Guide the program debuted in 1930. He began with ribaldly racist  black face routines as the character "Spareribs" which he portrayed on both the WLS National Barn Dance and a lesser known program The Sinclaire Weiner Minstrels on WTMJ as early as 1932. Strangely the segue from black face to wholesome children's classics was gradual. When his children's began he actually did it in black face affecting the faux rural accent and all. More here.

The book The Hayloft Gang by Chad Berry even dedicated a few pages to the story of "Uncle Mal."  Claire was known to emcee the National Barn dance in that era as well. The 1944 WLS Family Album indicated that Malcolm was also doing overnights from 3am to 5am in the morning. I am only aware of a single recording of his program in the Radio Gold Index making it a true rarity.

Cliff Arquette's Wild Boat Ride.

Let us consider the legend of  Cliff Arquette. It is said that at one time, he was performing regularly at 13 different daily radio shows at different 13 stations in the Chicago market. Furthermore that he was traveling from one studio to another by way of motorboats along the Chicago River which passed through its downtown. The claim seems to originate in an old issue of Coronet Magazine. But is it true?

He began as a bit-part funny-man hailing from Toledo, OH. He started out doing a vaudeville routine with Lolly Gookins called Cliff and Lolly Nuts of Harmony. He developed a character called Charley Weaver, who was a hapless folksy old man. It caught on. (He later got into a cross-dressing bit that was big for a time.) An issue of Popular Science from 1938 called him a "Radio Comedian" noting that he was playing more than 50 parts in various NBC radio programs. That's a nice early and reliable print source, but it cites no programs or stations!

Below is a partial list of programs he appeared on. I got some from the Radio Gold Index, more from the Encyclopedia of Old Time Radio by John Dunning. I cant' confirm it, but many of those NBC programs were performed at WBCN, the Chicago NBC affiliate. To be honest I can't find 13 programs happening concurrently in the Chicago metro but there are more enough a few to bear this out. His uncredited appearances are surely far greater.

• WGN - Cliff and Lolly, 1933
• WISN - Myrt and Marge, 1933 -? 
• NBC - The Fred Astaire (Packard) Show, 1934-1937
• KECA - Hollywood Spotlight, 1935
• NBC - Edgar A. Guest, 1935-1941
• WMAQ - Fibber McGee and Molly, 1936-1954
• NBC Blue - The Jack Benny (Jell-O) Program, 1938
• NBC Blue - The Rudy Vallee (Fleischmann's Yeast ) Hour, 1939
• NBC Blue - Avalon Time, 1939-1941
• NBC Blue - Frank Watanabe and The Honorable Archie, 1939-1940
• ABC - Point Sublime, 1940-1948
• NBC Blue - I Love a Mystery, 1942?
• Mutual - The Adventures of Wild Bill Hickok, 1943-1953
• NBC - The Lifebuoy Show, 1943
• ABC - Glamour Manor, 1944-1945
• NBC - The Dick Haymes (Autolite) Show, 1944-1948
• ABC - Ellery Queen, 1948
• CBS - My Home Town, 1949
• The Dave Willock and Cliff Arquette Show, 1950
• CBS - Lum and Abner Show, 1950
• CBS - The Harold Peary Show, 1951

There is a stretch in his career when he was clearly based in the Chicago area. It starts in 1933 or earlier and running until about 1938 when his career clearly became more mobile. The Chicago river hugs Wacker Drive right through the heart of the city, splitting into the north and south branches at Orleans Street. In that era WGN was in the Drake Hotel on Lakeshore Drive. 14 blocks north of the river—but only two if you boated out and around to the Lake Michigan side. WISN however, is up in Milwaukee. It's a trip not directly traversed by any river route, nor in a time frame allowing one to appear on multiple shows per day.

But WMAQ moved to 400 West Madison in 1928 (today 2 North Riverside Plaza) and that location is 1 block off Wacker drive following the south branch. As of 1935 downtown Chicago had at least 8 commercial radio stations: WCRW, WMAQ, WENR, WGN, WBCN, WBBM, WGES, WHFC, WKBI, and WSBC. WGES was on 2400 W. Madison Street in that era, and the NBC Tower at 454 N. Columbus Drive. I have to say... this at least appears plausible.

The National Farm and Home Hour

The National Farm and Home Hour was a variety show which began broadcasting on NBC Blue Network in 1929. The show was broadcast at noon live from 670 WMAQ-AM. It had a studio audience and a band opening daily with Sousa march "Stars and Stripes Forever."  John Dunning's On the Air: The Encyclopedia of Old-Time Radio has it airing locally on KDKA-AM in Pittsburgh in 1928. That may seem incongruous but at the time NBC had an agricultural programming director at WMAQ, Frank Mullen the founder of KDKA. somehow Louise Margaret Benjamin skips that link in her book The NBC Advisory Council and Radio Programming. She only connects it back to an experimental radio pilot called the Dinner Bell Hour on NBC. It's also worth noting that the Bibliography on Educational Broadcasting  by Isabella Mitchell Cooper also credits Frank Mullen on KDKA via a citation to a 1935 article printed by NBC, "Radio For the Farm Folks, How the Farm Hour Started.That's a solid source.

The program would continue to run for three decades.  It was sponsored by the U.S. Department of Agriculture and American Farm Bureau, 4-H Club, Farmers Union, Montgomery Ward, The Future Farmers of America (FFA) and the National Grange.  It's not surprising to see them on a list together, but the program was intended for rural listeners in farming communities. For context try to remember that Rural Free Delivery was only adopted in 1902, and rural electrification only began in 1932. It was a civic-minded era, and the Secretary of Agriculture liked to broadcast the occasional speech from time to time as well.

The program was a true variety show. It had an orchestra, musical guests, comedy skits and a re-occurring park ranger  character played by Don Ameche. But it's core was weather and agricultural news which is how  the secretary of the Dept of Agriculture coudl act as it's producer. In June of 1945 NBC Blue became ABC and the National Farm and Home Hour  moved to NBC as a 30 minute program. It was still being carried on over 100 stations. It remained there until 1958 with Allis-Chalmers as it's primary sponsor. It died with a whimper spending it's last 3 years as a segment on NBC's weekend anthology Monitor.  The program was cancelled in 1958.

It's most famous host was Everett Mitchell. He was on the program from 1932 onward. His trademark line was "It's a beautiful day in Chicago!" Mitchell was a former insurance claim adjustor who broke into radio singing part-time at radio station WENR-AM. A belligerent manager made him choose between radio and insurance. He picked the latter.  Nemorino writes that over the course of his career he also spent time on WQJ, WEBH, and WHT.

It's hard to find citations but WQJ was a short-lived dayshare with WMAQ owned by the Calumet Baking Powder Company and a local Chicago venue, the Rainbo Gardens Ballroom. WMAQ bought them out in 1927. WEBH was another Chicago station, this one owned by the Edgewater Beach Hotel. WEBH is even more fleeting, a dayshare with WDAP.  They signed on in 1923 and were deleted in 1928. (That license became WGN.) WHT was owned by the Radiophone Broadcasting Corporation, in Deerfield, IL a suburb of Chicago. They operated just in 1927 and 1926 as far as I can tell.  But it shows that he had at most a few years experience before landing that job as host of the Farm Hour. years after the program ended, in 1967 Mitchell received the Great Service to America Award and retired that year. He died in 1990. Frank Mullen died in 1977 and farm radio continues to wither to this day.

Paul Harvey: The Last DJ

Paul Harvey died Saturday at the age of 90 at a hospital near his winter home in Phoenix. In the year 2000 ABC renewed his program for another 10 years; a vote of confidence at the end of a radio that lasted over 70 years. He was the last DJ in America older than radio itself. He was born in 1918, three years before the first commercial radio license.

His program "News & Comment" began on ABC in 1951, his other "The Rest of the Story" began in 1976. He began at KVOO a radio station in his home town of Tulsa, Oklahoma. He briefly worked at KSAL in Salina, KS, KOMA in Oklahoma City, KFBI in Abilene, Kansas and KXOK in St. Louis. In 1941, He became program director for WKZO in Kalamazoo, Michigan.

But a year later he moved to Chicago for a gig at WENR Chicago. It was there that his 10 p.m. newscast became the top-rated program and his real career began. It is rumored that Paul Harvey Jr. may take over the program.

Samuel Insull

Thomas Edison is the big name behind electrification. But it was another man named Samuel Insull, who mass-marketed electricity. A book came out in 2006 about Insull titled The Merchant of Power. I have not read it yet, but the title alone speaks volumes. But he also had an interesting connection to radio... other than powering them.

Insull swas born in London in 1859 and only emigrated to America in 1881 at the age of 22. He became Thomas Edison's private secretary taking a particular interest in electricity. Edison was pleased with his interest and his abilities and sent him to Schenectady, New York, to run an electrical factory. By 1892, he was president of the Chicago Edison Company.

In 1892 a merger pushed Edison out of his own company. Insull departed too. He went to Chicago where he really got started. He bought a single power station that served about 5,000 people then took out a personal loan for a quarter million dollars to buy out the competition. He charged different customers different rates at different times of day a policy still used today. He increased demand for electricity by offering to subsidizing the cost of wiring up homes. By the 1920s he was serving 4 million homes. He owned 60 companies.

Insull kept abreast of the deeds of his utility competitors. When Westinghouse launched KDKA-AM Insull ,decided to keep up with the Jones's. He decided to build a radio station in Chicago working with the Chicago Opera Company. The idea being that the opera would be broadcast live. This station would become KYW-AM. the station was build and owned by Westinghouse but operated jointly by Westinghouse and Edison Electric.

In 1928 Samuel Insull and his utility associates paid one million dollars to buy 890 WENR-AM, a share time with WLS. There were other Chicago area stations they could have been bought for much less. Insull bought WENR not for the license but to acquire Station Manager Everett Mitchell. Mitchell went on to orchestrate Insull’s radio appearances as a member of Insulls staff.

In 1931 NBC made Chicago its broadcasting hub. They swooped in and bought WENR from Insull while it was for sale cheap in the early days of the depression. Interestingly enough by then, Everett Mitchell was a salable product. NBC wanted Mitchell as much as WENR. Everett Mitchell, he was given the assignment of presenting The National Farm and Home Hour syndicated on NBC of course.

In 1936 Insull started his own radio network the Affiliate Broadcast System (ABS.) the network wasn't very big nor very powerful. They had some rights to broadcast Cubs and White Sox games, but mostly on low powered stations. Affiliates included: KFIZ, WKBH, WHBY, WOMT, WHBL, WIBY, WRJN, WHBF, WCLS, WTAX, WJBL, WTRC, WWAE, WBOW, WOEA, WIND, WLBC, WKKB, WDGY, and WIL a total of 21 stations covering the midwest.

When the stock market crashed turned over everything to his creditors. He resigned from all his companies including ABS by 1936. In the days of the New Deal Insull became an example of corruption and fraud in big business. Roosevelt demonized him in public statements. He lost everything in the Great Depression welshing on a many debts and dubious business deals. He fled to Europe to avoid extradition. He was forced to return the the U.S. to stand trial for fraud, but was aquitted. He died in a Paris metro station in 1938 with 84 cents in his pocket.