Before the digitization of television, physical title cards, or intertitles, were handmade and filmed in front of the camera to portray the title of a new segment, graphics, or credits in television. These physical title cards were also commonly used in the early years of television to portray dialogue before audio soundtracks were introduced in the 1930s, in silent films for example. In SCUA, we house extensive records from WOI-TV, the nation’s first educational television station that began broadcasting in 1950 from Iowa State College. These records include several title cards that were used for segments of their broadcasts.
“WOI-TV special news bulletin”“a WOI Television production”WOI title cards can be found in RS 5/6/52, Box 2, Folder 1 and 11
All of WOI-TV’s title cards are 14 x 11″ and created using various materials including plastic, printed graphics, and paint on a cardboard-like base. The left WOI-TV graphic was also made into a 2×2″ slide for filming.
“handy man”10 o’clock news with Wally BishopSlides found in RS 5/6/52, Box 2, Folders 16 and 13“Sunday afternoon books news music drama”“This Week in Pictures”Slides found in RS 5/6/52, Box 2, Folders 17 and 15
These four title slides were likely used to introduce segments on WOI-TV, such as the “handy man”, 10 o’clock news, Sunday Afternoon, and This Week in Pictures.
“VEISHEA May 14-15-16”“Homecoming Iowa State College Oct 21-22”Slides found in RS 5/6/52, Box 2, Folders 19 and 23
Since WOI-TV originated at Iowa State College, many Iowa State events were covered in its broadcasts. Here you can see a title slide used to talk about the now discontinued VEISHEA celebration on campus, and Iowa State Homecoming.
“A moment of meditation with a thought for the week”“Language was given us that we might say pleasant things to each other”“You may find your worst enemy or best friend in yourself” “What do we live for if it is not to make life less difficult for each other?”All four slides can be found in RS 5/6/52, Box 2, Folder 5
In SCUA, we have many of these ‘meditation moment’ cards in our collection- with 4 of them pictured above. In addition to these proverbs and quotes, WOI-TV had many title cards with quotations from The Bible and seemed to display a lot of Christian messages in their broadcasts.
Come visit this collection in person at SCUA and see all the treasures we have from WOI-TV. We are open Monday-Thursday 9-5pm and would love to see you drop by!
To commemorate the 50th anniversary of the signing of the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967, Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) will be joining the American Archive of Public Broadcasting‘s month-long celebration of the Public Broadcasting Act’s 50th Anniversary by posting content throughout the month to celebrate the history and preservation of public broadcasting!
WOI-AM went on the air on April 28, 1922, with regular market news broadcasts. During the next 25 years, the scope of station programming expanded to encompass all areas of Iowa State‘s activities including agricultural programming, programs for homemakers, lectures, forums, and classical music. On July 1, 1949, WOI-FM became one of the first FM stations in Iowa when it started broadcasting. In 2004, WOI Radio became part of Iowa Public Radio.
Iowa State’s WOI radio room, circa 1920s (University Photographs RS 5/6).
WOI-TV went on the air in February 1950 and for several years was the first station in central Iowa to offer a regular schedule of programming. It was the first television station owned and operated by an institution of higher learning and was noteworthy for its early experiments in Kinescope recording techniques. WOI-TV was sold to Capital Communications Company, Inc. in 1994.
Photograph of Barbara McWhorter, the VEISHEA Queen of Queens for 1951, on WOI-TV (University Photographs RS 22/12).
This collection contains correspondence, news clippings, reports, brochures and other publications, and minutes from WOI Board meetings. The records also include information on the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) licensing and the tax cases in which WOI was involved. In addition, the records include scripts and other documents for various WOI Radio and Television programs, such as “The Prairie Valley Intelligencer” and “The Homemaker’s Half-Hour.” There are also audience surveys, Nielson Ratings showing the station in comparison to other area stations, and programming schedules.
Today’s  blog post is a collaborative blog post, from several Special Collections and University Archives (SCUA) staff, about the artifacts that give us the most thrills and chills. Some staff interpreted this as the spookiest artifact and some as the coolest most exciting artifact. Whatever the interpretation, here are the artifacts that give us the most chills and thrills.
Quartz Fiber Balance
Quartz Fiber Balance (Artifact #2003-2-3.003)
From Amy Bishop, Rare Books & Manuscripts Curator
I nominate the Quartz Fiber Balance (artifact number 2003-203.003) from the Harry J. Svec Papers (RS 13/6/53) as the most thrilling artifact in our collections. Why the thrill? This particular balance, created by Svec as the ISU chemistry department’s glassblower, was used in Ames as part of the Manhattan Project during World War II. The thought of the Manhattan Project always gives me mixed thrills and chills. Thrills from the thought of cutting-edge, top secret scientific research. Chills because of the purpose and ultimate conclusion of the Manhattan Project: atomic bombs, two of which were dropped on the Japanese cities of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, killing horrific numbers of people. And of course what that led to – the nuclear arms race of the Cold War and the proliferation of nuclear weapons around the world.
Also thrilling, though, is to think of the skill of an ISU graduate student who worked as a glassblower, creating by hand precise apparatus for chemical experiments. To quote from the item’s catalog record: “The balance mechanism inside is entirely quartz and balances on a thin quartz thread. This mechanism is very delicate and is sensitive to one-millionth of a gram. Up to one gram of material can be held on each end.” Very impressive indeed. See more about the Ames Project in the Ames Laboratory Records.
General Geddes Sword (1827)
General Geddes Sword (Artifact #2015-R003)
From Chris Anderson, Descriptive Records Project Archivist
James Lorraine Geddes (1827-1887) led an adventurous life before his association with Iowa Agricultural College. Born in Scotland, he also lived in Canada and India before settling in the United States. In India, served in the Royal Horse Artillery of the British Army. In this capacity he distinguished himself in the ongoing Anglo-Afghan conflicts in Punjab and the Khyber Pass. He retired a Colonel in 1857 and moved to a farm in Iowa. This peaceful interval did not last long, however. He fought for the Union in the U.S. Civil War, beginning as a private and rising to the rank of Brevet Brigadier General (1865). After the war he returned to Vinton, Iowa. His many achievements in higher education were to follow (1867-1887).
His sword, therefore, makes me think of dire battles. Our information associates the year 1827 with the sword, which is puzzling – Geddes was born in that year.
Candelabra
Candelabra from Gravesend Manor (uncataloged)
From Becky Jordan, Reference Specialist
We received this along with other WOI materials when the television station moved out of the Communications Building.
This was a prop from Gravesend Manor—a television program that aired late on Saturday nights on WOI-TV. They showed horror films with local staff doing introductions and intermissions. Some of the characters were Malcom the Butler (Ed Weiss), the Duke of Desmodus (James Varnum), Claude (Ron Scott) and Esmerelda (John Voight). My best recollections of the show are from slumber parties. It was generally enjoyed with pop and pizza—made from a kit that came in a box—and a lot of giggling.
For the most thrilling artifact, I’ve picked metal shrapnel from World War I (2004-179.001 and .002). These pieces came from MS 666, the Fred O. Gordon Papers. Gordon fought in Europe in Battery F, 119th Field Artillery from 1918-1919 and was wounded in October 1918. The shrapnel pieces are thick, solid metal, and I can only imagine the sheer force of the explosion(s) that would’ve blown them apart. Not to mention the damage those pieces could have inflicted if they had hit someone. The act of seeing and holding authentic shrapnel from WWI makes the war and its horrors feel more real, and that’s definitely thrilling.
Tornado Souvenir
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From Rachel Seale, Outreach Archivist
My most thrilling artifact is a piece of wood, birch bark. It was found near Margaret Hall in the summer of 1924. Hand written lettering on the piece of birch bark: “Tornado Souvenir June 28, 1924[.] From Tree near Margaret Hall I.S.C. Ames, Iowa.” I selected this item because I am new to the Midwest and have been a little fixated on weather, particularly weather conditions that may favor a tornado. I can’t imagine anything more thrilling and scarier than a tornado.
Margaret Stanton’s Death Mask
Death Mask of Margaret Stanton (Artifact 2001-R130)
From Petrina Jackson, Head of SCUA
Hands down, Margaret Stanton’s death mask, for me, is our most macabre artifact. Popular through the nineteenth century, death masks were created as a commemoration or a way to create a portrait or sculpture of the dead. Death masks were usually made for people who were held in high esteem, which is a testimony of how beloved Margaret Stanton was to the Iowa State community. Although uncommon today, creating death masks, taking photographs of the dead lying in state, or weaving their hair into wreaths or jewelry were all ways that people honored the deceased in the past. With death far more removed from day-to-day, 21st-century American life, the death mask gets my vote as our creepiest, most macabre artifact.
This month is a great time to celebrate children’s television programming in the State of Iowa. After all, Iowa Public Television is debuting their new IPTV Kids Clubhouse with host, and personal friend of yours truly, Dan Wardell. If you have kids (or you are a kid at heart) I would recommend checking it out.
This undated image shows longtime host of The Magic Window, Betty Lou Varnum, on the set of the show. Photograph from box 4, folder 6 of the Betty Lou Varnum Papers, RS 5/6/53.
Of course, any discussion of children’s programming in Iowa eventually leads to talk of WOI-TV and America’s longest-running children’s program (who am I to argue with Wikipedia?)–The House with the Magic Window. Originally called The Magic Window, this program aired in central Iowa on WOI-TV from 1951 until 1994 and for nearly 40 years was hosted by Betty Lou (McVay) Varnum. Betty Lou became a fixture in most central Iowa households and almost anyone growing up here during this time could tell you who Betty Lou was and name each of her puppet friends that regularly appeared on the show.
However, Betty Lou was not the first host of The Magic Window. Other hosts included Virginia “Ginny” Adams, Joy (Ringham) Munn, and Arjes “Sunny” Sundquist. Each of these women hosted the show for a year or so until Betty Lou took over permanently. Special Collections and University Archives has kinescope (16mm film) recordings of some of the earliest episodes of The Magic Window in our collections, but sadly we only have one recording, dating from 1955, of Betty Lou as host of The Magic Window!
Something most people may not be aware of is that WOI-TV produced a second children’s program in 1954 called Window Watchers (I see a theme here). This program was sponsored by the National Educational Television and Radio Center, later known as the Public Broadcasting Service. Window Watchers was hosted by Arjes Sundquist and featured a format very similar to that of The Magic Window.
To view some of these early children’s programs, visit our YouTube Channel!
For more information on WOI-TV during the time it was owned and operated by Iowa State University, read through some of the finding aids listed on the Special Collections and University Archives website on this page.
On February 21, 1950, WOI-TV broadcast its first programming from the campus of Iowa State College. Originally licensed to operate as Channel 4, WOI was the nation’s first educational television station and, until 1954, central Iowa’s only television station. In the spirit of the Extension tradition, Iowa State intended to use the station to explore how television could revolutionize adult education and bring new learning opportunities to high school students across the state. The station programmers knew that they faced several challenges by focusing on educational programming. A report published two months after the station was on the air identified that one of the greatest challenges the station faced was “to prove that farming and homemaking telecasts can be interesting and entertaining and at the same time be educational.”
Ed Wegner, host of the WOI-TV program “Televisits” (RS 5/6/6, box 1, folder 12)
One of the early successes of the station occurred in 1951 with the acquisition of a $260,000 grant from the Ford Foundation’s Fund for Adult Education. This money allowed WOI to produce a series of public affairs programs titled “The Whole Town’s Talking.” These programs looked at issues affecting central Iowans and illustrated how the community members debated matters such as school consolidation, community infrastructure projects, and juvenile delinquency. This award-winning series was directed and produced by Charles Guggenheim, who later in his career would direct a number of Academy Award-winning documentaries and become a media advisor for several presidential campaigns including Robert Kennedy’s.
Scene from the set of an episode of “The Whole Town’s Talking,” circa 1952 (RS 5/6/6, box 1, folder 13)
When the University sold WOI-TV to Capital Communications Company in 1994, the University Archives acquired the paper records of the television station along with thousands of 16mm films and videotapes. These films offer a glimpse of what local television programming was like in the 1950s and some of these films have been digitized and are available on our YouTube channel. You can judge for yourself how successful the station was at providing educational programming that was both interesting and entertaining!
The Whole Town’s Talking – Cambridge
More resources are available in Special Collections (of course!)
A complete list of WOI-TV programs available for viewing in Special Collections can be seen here. WOI-TV 16mm film listing
Finding aids for our archival collections related to WOI Radio and Television can be found on our website. Finding Aids
If you see anything of interest, contact us, or better yet stop in and see us!
It’s that time again! Time to get together with family and friends and celebrate the holiday season. For many, that season means Christmas, and with Christmas comes lots and lots of food. In case any of you are still trying to figure out your menus, here are some ideas courtesy of WOI-TV’s Homemaker’s Half-Hour. While these menus were originally created for Christmas, I see no reason why they couldn’t be used or adapted for Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, or anything else anybody might celebrate.
This three-way Christmas dinner menu (broadcast the week of December 17-22, 1945) gives you plenty of options to choose from in each category. Comments were made on the various dishes in this menu throughout the week:
Fruit Appetizer: mixed fruit cup or fruit salad or fruit juice
Bird in the Hand: Roast goose, roast duck, or “mock duck” from lamb or pork tenderloins
Stuffings: celery stuffing, rice and dried apricot stuffing, savory dressing with walnut meats
Potatoes: honeyed sweet potatoes or fluffy mashed potatoes with rich brown gravy
A Homey Vegetable: cheese creamed onions, mashed turnip or squash or green beans
Festive Relish Tray: celery, pickles, carrot sticks, etc.
Sweets: spiced currants, gooseberries or cranberries
Rolls: assorted hot rolls (refrigerator roll dough) as parker-house, clover leaf, crescent
Dessert: steamed pudding or mince pie (choice or carrot pudding with lemon sauce; raisin pudding with foamy sauce, plum pudding, cranberry pudding vanilla sauce, etc.)
Beverage
Below are a couple of recipes featured in the notes for this menu’s episodes.
Recipes for carrot pudding and lemon sauce (RS 5/6/3, box 40, folder 1)
Some items in other Christmas menus include the following:
Christmas dinner, 1946: Oyster baked potatoes (presumably using leftover oysters from Christmas Eve’s oyster stew – a tradition in many families)
Christmas dinner, 1946: Plum pudding with hard sauce (a combination of butter, sugar, and brandy or rum) for those who fancy an English Christmas tradition
Christmas Luncheon or Supper, 1947: Oyster or salsify soup (salsify is a root vegetable that tastes like oysters when cooked; salsify soup is sometimes called “poor man’s oyster stew”)
Christmas Luncheon or Supper, 1947: Fruit cake
Christmas Dinner, 1950: Chilled grapefruit sections with red hots
Christmas Dinner, 1950: Bride’s salad (mixture of fruit including white grapes and nuts folded into whipped cream; lemon juice and sugar may be added to the whipped cream if desired)
Unfortunately we don’t have recipes for all of these items, but I’m sure similar recipes can be found online. Well, maybe not for everything, but then again the internet is full of surprises!
Many more menus – holiday or not – are available in the WOI Radio and Television Records, as well as scripts of Homemaker’s Half-Hour and other productions. Our cookbook collection is also full of some great and interesting recipes, some of which you can view online.
Whatever you celebrate, however you celebrate, we wish you a very happy holiday!
Here’s a Halloween treat for those of you who stayed up late watching TV in the 1960s: a photo of the cast of WOI’s Saturday night horror movie show Gravesend Manor.
A signed photo of The Duke of Desmodas (Jim “Red” Varnum), Malcom the Butler (Ed Weiss), and Esmerelda (John Voigt) of Gravesend Manor, undated. (RS 5/6/D,E,M Box 432)
Gravesend Manor, or Grave’s End Manor as it was sometimes printed in programming schedules and notes, aired on Saturday nights at 11:00 in the 1960s and possibly the late 1950s. Our information on the program is limited, but programming notes and programming schedules indicate the show ran for certain in 1960, and then from 1964 through 1968. The program was one of those classic horror movie showcase shows in which a spooky host – such as Malcom the Butler, above – presented old, often B-movie quality, horror movies and would add in their own bit of humor. A current example is Svengoolie, whose show is broadcast on MeTV (channel 8.2 in the Des Moines broadcasting area) on Saturday nights. A couple of older examples include Vampira in the 1950s and Elvira in the 1980s. Some information on Gravesend Manor can be found online at DesMoinesBroadcasting.com and on a few websites dedicated to these types of shows, which can be found by conducting a Google search of Gravesend Manor. The only known remaining footage of the show consists of outtakes, which is featured on this YouTube video.
Two men in the WOI recording studio, January 12, 1925
The 1920s: age of jazz, flappers and sheiks, the Charleston, and Prohibition. It was also arguably the decade in which the Golden Age of Radio began. At the very least, radio started to become quite popular during this time. The dapper gentlemen in the photo look as though they’re getting ready to go on the air in the WOI recording studio. WOI first went on the air on April 28, 1922, with market news as its first regular feature. The station began broadcasting Cyclones football games in fall of 1922. Two long-running radio programs began in this era, Music Shop (originally introduced by Andy Woolfries) and The Book Club. The former began in 1925 and ended in 2009, while the latter began in 1927 and ended in 2006. More information on WOI radio can be found in the WOI Radio and Television Records, the WOI Radio and Television Biographical Files, these other related collections, and more photos can be found on our Flickr site.
Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching – the holiday season is here! Holiday recipes can be found in a variety of places in Special Collections, including homemaking radio show scripts from the WOI Radio and Television Records (RS 5/6/3). Homemaking radio shows were popular during the early to middle part of the 20th century, and Iowa State’s own WOI hosted programs for homemakers, including Homemaker’s Half Hour. Homemaker’s Half Hour aired over WOI radio from the late 1920s through the early 1960s.
We have script books from Homemaker’s Half Hour here in our University Archives. These scripts contain recipes which are often chosen based on upcoming holidays or time of year. Below are Thanksgiving recipes from the first Homemaker’s Half Hour script book in the WOI records – from 1937 (earlier script books can be found in other collections – see below for a few links to these finding aids). The recipes include crown of pork, apple and raisin stuffing, spiced cranberry stuffing, mock duck, and pumpkin chiffon pie. You can click on the pages to get a larger image.
The recipe for Spiced Cranberry Stuffing (for Pork Shoulder or Crown) on the second page might be useful those of you who bought an overabundance of fresh cranberries – or if you just like cranberries!:
2 cups ground (uncooked) cranberries
1 cup sugar
2 cups fine dry bread crumbs
2 tsp. baking powder
1/4 tsp. salt
1/4 tsp. cinnamon
1/4 tsp. nutmeg
cold water
Sweeten cranberries and combine with bread crumbs. Add spices and baking powder, and mix well. Add enough cold water to moisten and pack lightly into cavity in pork shoulder or crown. Roast meat as usual.
You will probably notice that there is no turkey in the array of recipes. Is this a Depression or Dust Bowl era phenomenon? Was it more practical to raise pigs and sheep? Whatever the reason for the lack of turkey in the Thanksgiving script above, the recipes look delicious!
If you are interested in taking a look at some of the homemaking radio show records, please come visit us here in Special Collections. However, if you would like to make photocopies of any of the materials please ask first. The script books in the WOI records are not easy to photocopy.
More on homemaking radio shows here at Iowa State and in Iowa can be found in this earlier post.
Today (Thursday, March 11) and over the weekend, Iowa Public Television will be showing a program called Iowa’s Radio Homemakers. The Special Collections department contributed film footage and photographs to the show. The program focuses on how rural women in Iowa listened to the radio for news and information, in addition to entertainment, and a popular form of radio show they tuned in for were the homemaker radio shows. These programs provided information on a wide variety of topics including food, nutrition, recipes, child rearing, sewing and gardening. One of the radio homemakers featured on the show is Evelyn Birkby (to hear Evelyn Birkby describe her experiences, watch this youtube video). Our Special Collections Department has a number of her books, including Cooking with KMA : Featuring 60 years of Radio Homemakers (TX715.B49924 1985).
Eleanor Wilkinson (Martha Duncan)
Iowa State’s own WOI had a number of radio shows for homemakers, including the popular “Homemaker’s Half Hour.” The WOI Radio and Television Administrative Records (RS 5/6/3) here at the University Archives has a variety of documents from the program, including scripts, interviews and recipes. “Homemaker’s Half Hour” programming director for many years, Eleanor Wilkins (known as Martha Duncan on radio), worked in the food and nutrition department of ISU when she started at WOI in 1938. An interesting folder in the WOI Radio and Television Administrative Records (RS 5/6/3) contains letters written to Duncan from women who had been educated in home economics. They wrote of how their education had influenced their careers and lives. These letters were for a program she was planning on careers. When Martha Duncan retired as host of the program in 1966, the “Homemakers Half Hour” also ended its continuous run since 1925.
ISU home economics class from 1953.
In addition to producing radio shows for homemakers through WOI, Iowa State University had another important contribution to the radio shows and homemakers through its programs of study, such as home economics (now more commonly known as Family and Consumer Science), first taught as Domestic Economy in 1872. Women graduating with a degree in home economics contributed valuable guidance to the people of Iowa and the nation in the area of home economics.
In honor of Women’s History Month, or just to learn more about radio programs for homemakers in Iowa, come visit the Special Collections Department. We have some collections (RS 5/6/3 and RS 10/12/3) and and rare books related to these programs, in addition other homemaker related collections (such as MS-60).
Cardinal Tales 