1939 - Communications, Media

Communications, Media

Glamour magazine begins publication at New York in April. Street & Smith has launched the monthly to reach working women above the age of its 4-year-old Mademoiselle's readership.

A federal grand jury at Chicago indicts publisher Moses Annenberg August 11 on charges of having evaded $3,258,809.97 in income taxes between 1932 and 1936 (see Philadelphia Inquirer, 1936). Annenberg has used his Philadelphia newspaper to attack the New Deal, antagonizing President Roosevelt and Pennsylvania's Gov. George Earl; Roosevelt has asked Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau to look into his activities, it has turned out that he owes the government more than $5.5 million in the largest case of tax evasion in history, and the grand jury also indicts his 31-year-old son Walter and two other business associates. Annenberg pleads guilty and agrees to serve 3 years in prison and to pay $9.5 million in taxes, penalties, and interest. Charges against Walter and the others are dropped, but Moses will serve time in federal prison at Lewisburg, Pa. (see 1942; Seventeen, 1944).

NBC televises opening ceremonies of the New York World's Fair at Flushing Meadows April 30. About 1,000 viewers see the telecast that is picked up by from 100 to 200 experimental receivers set up in the metropolitan area (see 1945; BBC, 1936).

FM radio receivers go on sale for the first time (see Armstrong, 1933; Zenith, 1940).

The BBC assigns Indian-born former Oxford Union debater David Graham, 27, to its German section in August, and he will be involved for most of the next 6 years in German-language broadcasts to Germany and German-occupied France. Graham drafted and seconded the Union's 1933 pacifist resolution, but many former Oxford Union debaters will fight "for King and Country" against the Axis.

Buffalo-born theater director Worthington C. Miner, 38, gives up his Broadway stage career and joins Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) August 28 as general director of television. Miner will play a major role in the fledgling TV industry.

"This is London," says North Carolina-born CBS correspondent Edward R. (originally Egbert Roscoe) Murrow, 31, who grew up in Washington State and ends his broadcasts with the tagline "Goodnight and good luck." Murrow joined CBS in 1935 and has headed the network's European Bureau at London since 1937; his will become the best known voice on U.S. radio in the next 7 years.

France has 5 million radio sets to serve her population of 41 million; some 27.5 million U.S. families have radios by year's end, up from 10 million in 1929, and 45 million sets are in use in the United States.

American Telephone & Telegraph Co. (AT&T) introduces credit cards for traveling salesmen to use when making phone calls on the road.

The U.S. Post Office introduces "sky hook" service to pick up mail from rural communities, using Stinson Reliant planes to swoop down from the sky and pick up mail positioned at the top of tall poles while dropping mail to a waiting post office representative.

"Batman" makes his debut in the "The Case of the Chemical Syndicate" in the May issue of Detective Comics (DC). National Comics editor Vincent Sullivan has asked New York-born DC cartoonist Bob Kane, 18, and his partner Bill Finger to come up with a character to rival "Superman," launched last year. Working over a weekend they have created the Caped Crusader, who lives in the Batcave, drives a Batmobile equipped with a crime lab and closed-circuit television, owns a Batplane, and will soon be syndicated to newspapers (Finger has suggested the scalloped-edge cape, the cowl, the blank eyes, and the name "Bruce Wayne"). Batman's youthful aerialist sidekick Robin will be added next year and help his guardian battle against such villains as The Joker, The Penguin, and The Riddler.

Foreign correspondent-radio commentator Floyd P. Gibbons dies of a heart attack at his Sailorsburg, Pa., farm home September 24 at age 52; journalist Heywood Broun at Stamford, Conn., December 18 at age 51, having fought for social justice since 1912 and said, "I see no wisdom in saving up your indignation for a rainy day."