Period disc issued within days of the transatlantic flight. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
← A Century on the Air
1927–1970
Disaster and the Wire
When the bulletin interrupts
Before 1937 American networks did not record, which is why almost nothing of the great disasters of the early thirties can be heard at all. The station documentary changed that: from the fifties onwards local newsrooms went back to their own shelves and to survivors, and what they made — KDKA's 'Scrapbook in Sound' on the Hindenburg, 'Book of Fate' on the 1936 flood — is often the only surviving carrier of the original audio. Alongside them sits the strangest genre American radio ever produced: civil defence drama, in which the federal government paid for thirteen weeks of quiet, well-acted stories about the end of everything.
22 recordings · 6 broadcasters
Who carried it
FCDA syndication13KDKA Pittsburgh4Documentary2Commercial disc1Network pool1Network / FCDA1
Tuesday, 24 May 1927
Sunday, 19 May 1940
Lindbergh's national broadcast as the argument over intervention turned bitter. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Thursday, 6 July 1944
Documentary account of the 1944 Hartford circus fire. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Short documentary treatment of the Hartford fire. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 4 October 1955
Federal Civil Defense Administration series, syndicated to American stations. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 11 October 1955
Federal Civil Defense Administration series, syndicated to American stations. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 18 October 1955
Federal Civil Defense Administration series, syndicated to American stations. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 25 October 1955
Federal Civil Defense Administration series, syndicated to American stations. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 1 November 1955
Federal Civil Defense Administration series, syndicated to American stations. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 8 November 1955
Federal Civil Defense Administration series, syndicated to American stations. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 15 November 1955
Federal Civil Defense Administration series, syndicated to American stations. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 22 November 1955
Federal Civil Defense Administration series, syndicated to American stations. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 29 November 1955
Federal Civil Defense Administration series, syndicated to American stations. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 6 December 1955
Federal Civil Defense Administration series, syndicated to American stations. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 13 December 1955
Federal Civil Defense Administration series, syndicated to American stations. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 20 December 1955
Federal Civil Defense Administration series, syndicated to American stations. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 27 December 1955
Federal Civil Defense Administration series, syndicated to American stations. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Wednesday, 17 October 1956
Orson Welles narrates a network civil defence dramatisation. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Thursday, 3 May 1962
KDKA's documentary on the 1937 Lakehurst disaster, built around the original discs. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Tuesday, 9 November 1965
A news actuality cut as the lights went out across the Northeast. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Thursday, 17 March 1966
KDKA revisits the St Patrick's Day flood of 1936 with survivors and original coverage. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.
Monday, 2 November 1970
Disaster and the Wire
KDKA — 'Listen to What We Started': Fifty Years of Broadcasting
2 Nov 1970 · 59 min
KDKA Pittsburgh's fiftieth-anniversary documentary, containing airchecks reaching back to the 1920 election night that began American broadcasting. Recording held by the Internet Archive; public domain.