The run
- Network
- CBS
- Years active
- 1944–1944
- Surviving broadcasts
- 34
- Genre
- western
(34 Episodes) "Big Sister," the creation of Lillian Laugerty, was a 15 minute daily CBS serial, which successfully broadcast from September 14, 1936 until December 26, 1952. Set in the fictional town of Glen Falls, the program dramatized the life of Ruth Evans who sacrificed her own happiness to care for her younger sister Sue and their crippled brother Neddie. After Sue married reporter Jerry Miller, Ruth continued to care for Neddie. She fell in love with Neddie's doctor, John Wayne, who cured Neddie. Ruth and John married on October 19, 1939, but during World War II, John was held in a Japanese prison camp. He returned to Glen Falls suffering from shell-shock. * STARRING: Alice Frost, Nancy Marshall, Marjorie Anderson, Mercedes MaCambridge and Grace Mathews (all portrayed Ruth Evans), Santos Ortega (Dr. Duncan Carvell), Staats Cosworth (Dr. Digitised by the Old Time Radio Researchers and streamed from the Internet Archive item “BigSister”; these recordings are in the public domain.
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
1 dated broadcasts across 1 years on the air. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 1944, in original transmission order.
- 1. Big Sister 1944-06-07 Meeting w Holly Soon · 7 Jun 1944
- 2. Big Sister 1944 #009 · Date unknown
- 3. Big Sister 1944 #013 · Date unknown
Big Sister 1944-06-07 Meeting w Holly Soon
7 Jun 1944 · 14 min
Originally broadcast on CBS, 7 June 1944. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Big Sister 1944 #009
Date unknown · 11 min
Broadcast on CBS. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Big Sister 1944 #013
Date unknown · 11 min
Broadcast on CBS. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Big Sister 1944 #018
Date unknown · 11 min
Broadcast on CBS. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Big Sister 1944 #024
Date unknown · 11 min
Broadcast on CBS. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Big Sister 1944 #028
Date unknown · 10 min
Broadcast on CBS. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Big Sister 1944 #084
Date unknown · 11 min
Broadcast on CBS. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Big Sister 1944 #002
Date unknown · 11 min
Broadcast on CBS. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Also on CBS
CBS in 1944–1944
Other series the network carried while Big Sister was on the air.
Same seasons
western on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
What it became
The adult western
Gunsmoke was sold as the first adult western: moral ambiguity, weather, silence. Serialised folk horror and long-form fiction inherited its patience.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of Big Sister
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
More to explore
Chosen by the same editors.
