0:05 [SPEAKER_00]: It's a Sunday afternoon and late 1939, 3,000 people pack into Wheeling's capital theater, West Virginia's largest venue between Pittsburgh and Cincinnati, but they're not here for a movie, they're not here for Vaudeville, they're here to watch their neighbors perform on a national radio broadcast. 0:29 [SPEAKER_00]: the orchestra tunes up on stage, 42 musicians, machinists, crane operators, stenographers, dressed in matching uniforms, the steel sisters rehearsed in their harmonies backstage. 0:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Dorothy Ann Crowe, who spins her weekends typing in the company office, waits for her solo 0:55 [SPEAKER_00]: NBC microphones stand ready. 0:57 [SPEAKER_00]: Millions of Americans will hear this broadcast coast to coast. 1:03 [SPEAKER_00]: The theater manager watches nervously. 1:06 [SPEAKER_00]: The announcer takes his position. 1:09 [SPEAKER_00]: The audience goes quiet. 1:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And then the steam whistle blows. 1:15 [SPEAKER_00]: The signature sound of wheeling steel 1:21 [SPEAKER_00]: these performers aren't professional entertainers, their factory workers, and somehow they've become radio celebrities. 1:31 [SPEAKER_00]: How did steel workers in a depression ravaged town become national radio stars? 1:39 [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome back, friend, to hometown history. 1:42 [SPEAKER_00]: The podcast that takes a stroll down the main streets and back alleys of the past to uncover how local stories shaped the world. 1:51 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters. 1:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Tonight we're going to Wheeling, West Virginia, for the story of one man's six-year struggle to get his bosses to take a chance on radio and how that gamble turned factory workers into national celebrities 2:07 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the story of its wheeling steel. 2:12 [SPEAKER_00]: The radio show that proved working class Americans could be entertainers, not just audiences. 2:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Before we get into the show itself, you need to understand the stakes. 2:26 [SPEAKER_00]: This isn't just a feel good story about talented amateurs getting their moment in the spotlight. 2:33 [SPEAKER_00]: This is about economic survival, about labor tensions, in an industry recovering from a devastating strike, about a new technology, radio, democratizing entertainment during the worst economic collapse in American history, and it's about one man who saw an opportunity that his bosses thought was crazy, and let me show you how it all came together. 3:02 [SPEAKER_00]: First, Wheeling West Virginia in the early 1930s. 3:05 [SPEAKER_00]: This is steel country, the Wheeling Steel Corporation, organized June 21, 1920, employs more than 17,000 workers in the 1920s. 3:19 [SPEAKER_00]: They're the nation's third largest steel maker, 3:24 [SPEAKER_00]: They're slogan, it's from mind to market. 3:28 [SPEAKER_00]: They control everything from coal mines to finish products. 3:32 [SPEAKER_00]: Cut nails, steel pipes, tin cans, stoves. 3:36 [SPEAKER_00]: They call wheeling the nail city. 3:40 [SPEAKER_00]: then comes the Great Depression. 3:43 [SPEAKER_00]: West Virginia is one of the state's hardest hit. 3:47 [SPEAKER_00]: In some counties, unemployment exceeds 80%. 3:50 [SPEAKER_00]: Coal mining. 3:52 [SPEAKER_00]: Intimately connected to steel production. 3:55 [SPEAKER_00]: Virtually collapses. 3:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Thousands of miners and their families are stranded in idle coal camps. 4:04 [SPEAKER_00]: movie theaters by all accounts are reliable proxy for working-class economic health. 4:11 [SPEAKER_00]: See attendance dropped from 90 million admissions per week to 60 million between 1930 and 1933. 4:20 [SPEAKER_00]: But there's another shadow over wheeling steel, a longer shadow, 4:26 [SPEAKER_00]: September 22, 1919. 4:28 [SPEAKER_00]: The general steel strike begins. 4:32 [SPEAKER_00]: It shuts down half the steel industry, including almost all mills and wheeling. 4:40 [SPEAKER_00]: Steel companies use extensive espionage systems. 4:44 [SPEAKER_00]: Newspapers brand the strike as foreign-fired Bolshevism. 4:49 [SPEAKER_00]: Many strikers are immigrants. 4:56 [SPEAKER_00]: And for 15 years after that defeat, there's almost no union, organizing in the steel industry. 5:04 [SPEAKER_00]: None. 5:06 [SPEAKER_00]: The Amalgamated Association has only 8,600 members nationwide by 1930, then in 1933. 5:15 [SPEAKER_00]: The National Industry Recovery Act sparked renewed organizing 5:21 [SPEAKER_00]: Membership in the Amalgamated Association jumps to more than 150,000 by February 1934. 5:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Wheeling, like other blue-collar towns in the 1930s, is divided by labor troubles. 5:38 [SPEAKER_00]: Wheeling's steel signs a union contract with steel workers in spring 1937, 5:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Now keep that date in mind, because just months after that contract is signed, the company is going to approve something unusual. 5:56 [SPEAKER_00]: Something that's proposed for six years, but always rejected. 6:02 [SPEAKER_00]: Meanwhile, radio is transforming America. 6:06 [SPEAKER_00]: In 1930, historian Anne O'Hare McCormick writes, the radio has been a bigger factor than the press. 6:14 [SPEAKER_00]: The mass audiences of the speaking voice are larger than the mass audiences of the printed word. 6:21 [SPEAKER_00]: By 1938, there are more than 600 licensed stations. 6:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Radio reaches 81% of American homes. 6:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Incrucially, it's free. 6:34 [SPEAKER_00]: No ticket price. 6:35 [SPEAKER_00]: No transportation cost. 6:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Just turn it on. 6:40 [SPEAKER_00]: For working-class families devastated by the depression, Radio becomes the primary form of entertainment. 6:47 [SPEAKER_00]: And one advertising executive at Wheeling Steel has been watching this transformation very closely. 6:56 [SPEAKER_00]: Meet John L. Grimes. 6:59 [SPEAKER_00]: He's the advertising manager for Wheeling Steel Corporation. 7:03 [SPEAKER_00]: And he's been pitching an idea to the company executives since 1930. 7:09 [SPEAKER_00]: and idea they keep rejecting. 7:12 [SPEAKER_00]: He wants to put wheeling steel workers on the radio, not as a gimmick as a legitimate musical program. 7:20 [SPEAKER_00]: He believes the workers at wheeling steel have genuine talent. 7:24 [SPEAKER_00]: They just need a platform. 7:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Here's his pitch, a weekly radio show, featuring an orchestra, vocal groups, and soloists. 7:39 [SPEAKER_00]: they'll perform light classics, popular songs, show tunes. 7:44 [SPEAKER_00]: It'll showcase the company's workers as talented, cultured Americans. 7:50 [SPEAKER_00]: It'll improve the company's public image. 7:53 [SPEAKER_00]: And most importantly, 7:55 [SPEAKER_00]: it'll be advertising that doesn't feel like advertising. 8:00 [SPEAKER_00]: Grimes runs the numbers for his bosses. 8:03 [SPEAKER_00]: He calculates the cost of a 30-minute radio program. 8:07 [SPEAKER_00]: He compares it to the cost of traditional print advertising. 8:11 [SPEAKER_00]: He shows them the potential reach, millions of listeners across NBC's network. 8:17 [SPEAKER_00]: The executives say no. 8:19 [SPEAKER_00]: And to be fair, it's not an unreasonable concern, too expensive, too risky, who wants to listen to factory workers sing. 8:30 [SPEAKER_00]: So, Grimes waits. 8:33 [SPEAKER_00]: He refines his pitch. 8:35 [SPEAKER_00]: He gathers more data about radio's growth. 8:38 [SPEAKER_00]: He watches other companies experiment with sponsored programming. 8:43 [SPEAKER_00]: He tries again. 8:44 [SPEAKER_00]: 1931. 8:45 [SPEAKER_00]: No. 8:45 [SPEAKER_00]: 1932. 8:46 [SPEAKER_00]: No. 8:46 [SPEAKER_00]: 1933. 8:47 [SPEAKER_00]: No. 8:49 [SPEAKER_00]: 1934. 8:50 [SPEAKER_00]: No. 8:50 [SPEAKER_00]: 1935. 8:59 [SPEAKER_00]: No. 9:01 [SPEAKER_00]: Six years. 9:03 [SPEAKER_00]: Six projections. 9:05 [SPEAKER_00]: But in 1936, something changes. 9:09 [SPEAKER_00]: The company has signed that union contract, labor relations are stabilizing. 9:16 [SPEAKER_00]: The worst of the depression is behind them. 9:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Still production is recovering, and radio has become undeniably dominant in American culture. 9:28 [SPEAKER_00]: The executives? 9:29 [SPEAKER_00]: Finally? 9:30 [SPEAKER_00]: Say yes. 9:32 [SPEAKER_00]: they'll find a test program 13 weeks if it works they'll continue if it doesn't they'll cancel it John L. Grimes has six years of planning ready to go but here's the thing now comes the hard part finding the talent 9:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Imagine your John Grimes in the spring of 1936. 10:02 [SPEAKER_00]: You finally convinced your bosses to take this chance. 10:08 [SPEAKER_00]: You've got 13 weeks to prove this works. 10:12 [SPEAKER_00]: And you need to find an orchestra, vocal groups, soloists, all from the factory floor. 10:20 [SPEAKER_00]: Can you actually find 42 musicians who are good enough for a radio broadcast? 10:26 [SPEAKER_00]: Singers who can perform live on the air with no second takes, you are about to find out. 10:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The auditions begin. 10:37 [SPEAKER_00]: Workers come forward from across the company. 10:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Machines who play trumpet, stenographers who sing soprano, crane operators who play violin, 10:54 [SPEAKER_00]: They hold tryouts at company facilities, Grimes and his team evaluate hundreds of workers. 11:01 [SPEAKER_00]: They're not looking for professionals. 11:03 [SPEAKER_00]: They're looking for people with genuine ability who can rehearse around grueling factory shifts. 11:10 [SPEAKER_00]: and they find them, an orchestra of 42 musicians, the steel sisters of vocal group, the singing melman, soloists like Dorothy Ann Crow and Roy Wilson. 11:24 [SPEAKER_00]: They hire Lou Davies, a professional arranger with NBC experience to conduct the orchestra and handle musical direction. 11:33 [SPEAKER_00]: They secure a time slot on NBC's network. 11:37 [SPEAKER_00]: They choose a name. 11:39 [SPEAKER_00]: It's willing steel. 11:43 [SPEAKER_00]: The first broadcast is scheduled for November 8, 1936. 11:49 [SPEAKER_00]: No one knows if anyone will listen. 11:53 [SPEAKER_00]: No one knows if workers who spend their days and still 12:01 [SPEAKER_00]: But John Grimes has spent six years believing they can. 12:05 [SPEAKER_00]: November 8, 1936, the first episode of its wheeling steel goes on the air. 12:16 [SPEAKER_00]: Their response is immediate, letters pouring, hundreds of them, then thousands, people right to the company headquarters. 12:26 [SPEAKER_00]: They sent fan mail to specific performers. 12:30 [SPEAKER_00]: They request songs, they praise the quality of the program. 12:35 [SPEAKER_00]: The show isn't just acceptable, it's good, really good. 12:44 [SPEAKER_00]: The soloists are confident, the arrangements by Lou Davies are professional grade, this doesn't sound like amateur hour, it sounds like legitimate entertainment. 12:57 [SPEAKER_00]: NBC measures audience response through corporate analysis of broadcasting ratings. 13:03 [SPEAKER_00]: By the show's third season, its wheeling steel ranks fifth among all NBC's sustaining programs, programs carried by the network without sponsor payment. 13:16 [SPEAKER_00]: 5. 13:17 [SPEAKER_00]: On a national network, beating shows with professional entertainers. 13:23 [SPEAKER_00]: The program reaches millions of listeners across NBC's coast to coast network. 13:29 [SPEAKER_00]: The company estimates advertising value in the hundreds of thousands of dollars, equivalent reached that would cost enormous sums through traditional print advertising. 13:40 [SPEAKER_00]: But the real story isn't the numbers. 13:44 [SPEAKER_00]: the real story is what this means. 13:48 [SPEAKER_00]: Think about what its wheeling steel represents in 1936 to 1939 America. 13:55 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the depression. 13:58 [SPEAKER_00]: Millions of Americans are unemployed, struggling, questioning whether the economic system works for people like them. 14:06 [SPEAKER_00]: Class tensions are high. 14:09 [SPEAKER_00]: The common 14:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Someone to be served content, not someone who creates it, and here are steel workers, machinists, crane operators, stenographers, performing white classics, and show tunes are national radio, performing well, developing fan bases, becoming minor celebrities, 14:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The show makes a statement, working class Americans have culture, they have talent, they have artistic ability, they're not just labor, they're people with depth, skill, and creativity. 14:52 [SPEAKER_00]: For listeners and similar circumstances, factory workers, miners, laborers, this resonates deeply. 15:01 [SPEAKER_00]: You can work in a mill all day and perform Beethoven at night. 15:06 [SPEAKER_00]: These aren't mutually exclusive identities. 15:10 [SPEAKER_00]: For the performers themselves, it's transformative. 15:13 [SPEAKER_00]: They were hers two nights per week after factory shifts. 15:18 [SPEAKER_00]: They performed live on Sunday afternoons. 15:21 [SPEAKER_00]: They balanced demanding production schedules with artistic discipline and they do it because they love it. 15:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Because they get to express a side of themselves. 15:31 [SPEAKER_00]: Their daily work doesn't capture. 15:34 [SPEAKER_00]: Dorothy Anne Crowe, company stenographer by day, radio soloist, on weekends. 15:42 [SPEAKER_00]: The steel sisters balancing factory work in vocal performance, musicians who spent years playing for personal enjoyment now sharing their abilities with millions. 15:55 [SPEAKER_00]: John Grimes' six-year gamble is vindicated, and wheeling steel executives are watching the 16:04 [SPEAKER_00]: The employee morale boost, the cultural capital, accumulating around their company name. 16:11 [SPEAKER_00]: They renew the show, again and again. 16:15 [SPEAKER_00]: May 1939. 16:21 [SPEAKER_00]: The World Fair opens in New York City, the world of tomorrow, and its wheeling steel is invited to perform. 16:31 [SPEAKER_00]: This is the premier cultural event of 1939. 16:34 [SPEAKER_00]: 44 million people will attend the fair over its two year run. 16:42 [SPEAKER_00]: Every major company, every cultural institution, every country 16:50 [SPEAKER_00]: And there, on the RCA grounds, the showcase for broadcasting technology, wheeling steel's worker performers, take the stage. 17:00 [SPEAKER_00]: 1,000-6,000 people attend the performance, in BC broadcast nationwide. 17:08 [SPEAKER_00]: picture yourself back in wheeling West Virginia on that day in May 1939. 17:15 [SPEAKER_00]: You're gathered around the radio with your family and suddenly you're hearing your neighbors, people you see at church, at the grocery store, at the mill, performing at the world fair, your town, your people, on the biggest stage in America. 17:32 [SPEAKER_00]: For a small industrial town in West Virginia, this is quite the remarkable achievement, ordinary workers becoming radio stars, American possibility and action. 17:45 [SPEAKER_00]: The show's standard program was 30 minutes, their regular broadcast format, 17:50 [SPEAKER_00]: The full orchestra of local musicians, the steel sisters, Dorothy Ann Crowle, the singing Melmen, Roy Wilson, Lou Davies conducting, light classics, popular songs, show tunes, orchestral numbers, choral singing, 18:13 [SPEAKER_00]: WVU archives contain extensive photographs from the program staff and performers is visit to the fair. 18:22 [SPEAKER_00]: John Elgrimes is meeting with advertising and mutual broadcast company executives. 18:28 [SPEAKER_00]: Dorothy Anne Crow, Lou Davies, Roy Wilson, the Steel Sisters, all documented at America's premier cultural event of 1939. 18:41 [SPEAKER_00]: For six years, Grimes pitched this idea to skeptical executives. 18:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Now his performers are standing on the biggest stage in America. 18:52 [SPEAKER_00]: And back in wheeling, people are gathering around radios, bursting with pride. 19:00 [SPEAKER_00]: The show runs for eight seasons, 19:07 [SPEAKER_00]: During World War II, its wheeling steel becomes a vehicle for war bond sales. 19:13 [SPEAKER_00]: They hold concerts throughout the region. 19:16 [SPEAKER_00]: A single show at WVU's Field House generates over $663,000 in defense bond sales. 19:26 [SPEAKER_00]: The performers serve their country through entertainment, building morale, selling bonds, keeping spirits up on the home front. 19:37 [SPEAKER_00]: But by 1944, the landscape has changed. 19:42 [SPEAKER_00]: The war demands more from steel production. 19:45 [SPEAKER_00]: Workers have less time for rehearsals. 19:49 [SPEAKER_00]: many of the regular performers, these folks who balance factory shifts with rehearsals for eight years are serving in the military or working defense jobs. 20:01 [SPEAKER_00]: The labor environment is difficult. 20:04 [SPEAKER_00]: The union is established the tensions of the 1930s have given way to wartime unity. 20:12 [SPEAKER_00]: The show's purpose has shifted, while began as an advertising experiment, and labor relations tool has become something else entirely. 20:24 [SPEAKER_00]: June 18, 1944, the final broadcast, after 326 episodes, its wheeling steel goes off the air. 20:36 [SPEAKER_00]: The sources don't provide dramatic detail about the ending. 20:41 [SPEAKER_00]: No farewell speech is documented, no explanation of whether it was a financial decision or a natural conclusion. 20:49 [SPEAKER_00]: It simply ended. 20:51 [SPEAKER_00]: But the legacy didn't. 20:54 [SPEAKER_00]: Lou Davies, the show's arranger, goes on to work with Perry Komo's Chester Field Hour. 21:01 [SPEAKER_00]: And later assists Lawrence Welk, in developing a musical variety show for television, that reflects its wheeling steel's format and character. 21:12 [SPEAKER_00]: Family-oriented variety programming. 21:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Mix of light classics, popular songs, and show tunes. 21:23 [SPEAKER_00]: regular performers becoming audience favorites. 21:27 [SPEAKER_00]: The capital theater, where the show broadcast from 1939 onward, still stands at 1015 Main Street in Wheeling. 21:38 [SPEAKER_00]: It's listed in the National Historic District, closed for years. 21:43 [SPEAKER_00]: It was restored and reopened in September, 2009. 21:47 [SPEAKER_00]: Today it seats 2400 people, hosts the Wheeling Symphony Orchestra, and welcomes over 50,000 annual attendees. 21:58 [SPEAKER_00]: You can visit it. 22:00 [SPEAKER_00]: You can sit in the seats where 3,000 people once gathered to watch their neighbors perform 22:09 [SPEAKER_00]: There's something profound about what its wheeling still proved. 22:15 [SPEAKER_00]: Picture those Sunday mornings at the wheeling still mills. 22:19 [SPEAKER_00]: In 1937, 1938 and 1939, workers arriving for their shifts, knowing that in a few days, some of them will be performing for millions of people on national radio. 22:32 [SPEAKER_00]: That the person operating the crane next to you might be rehearsing a solo for Sunday's broadcast. 22:40 [SPEAKER_00]: That your town, your community, your neighbors, were proving something important to the rest of America. 22:48 [SPEAKER_00]: But for eight years, during America's darkest economic period, a still company took a chance on radio, a persistent ad man, convinced skeptical executives that workers could be entertainers, hundreds of employees auditioned, performers balanced grueling factory shifts with rehearsals, and it worked. 23:15 [SPEAKER_00]: machinists became musicians, stenographers became soloists, factory workers became national radio celebrities, they proved that working class Americans weren't just audiences, they were artists, that industrial towns weren't cultural voids, they were communities rich with talent, waiting for an opportunity. 23:42 [SPEAKER_00]: 1-6,000 people at the 1939 World Fair, fifth place in NBC's National Radings, life magazine coverage, eight years of broadcasts, from mill floor to stage, from willing to coast to coast. 24:04 [SPEAKER_00]: That's the story of wind steel workers, became radio stars, 24:09 [SPEAKER_00]: I'm Shane Waters, every hometown has a story. 24:14 [SPEAKER_00]: Tonight, it's when factory workers proved they could shine on the biggest stage in America. 24:21 [SPEAKER_00]: If you enjoyed this episode, share it with someone who'd appreciate this story. 24:27 [SPEAKER_00]: Good night, friend. 24:41 [UNKNOWN]: Thank you.
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