Women, Radio Broadcasting and the Depression: A “Captive” Audience from Household Hints to Story Time and Serials

The image of women radio listeners during the Depression is unduly influenced by contemporary ideas about daytime serial dramas. This distortion must be revisited in light of new evidence uncovered through content analysis of the program schedule and interview research. Interviews reveal that the conception of listening both as an active and a passive activity took time to develop. Conceptions of and forms of listening served to influence program scheduling. The program schedules evolved slowly and content analysis reveals that women’s programming did not fall into an established routine until the latter part of the 1930s.