KMBC radio was headquartered atop the swanky Pickwick Hotel in downtown Kansas City. The Pickwick was the place to stay for men doing business with the city and county. It was a favorite of Harry Truman when he was Presiding Judge of Jackson County. And while there were probably plenty of deals made by men in smoke-filled rooms, at KMBC they were thinking about and celebrating, women. Like all radio in the 30s and 40s, it was all live; the announcing, the commercials, the music, all of it.
You think local TV news invented live? Not a chance. Also, KMBC was a powerhouse radio station. At night it could be heard from Canada to Texas and from Colorado to Illinois.
The station had a school of the air, owned its own farm and produced the national distributed Brush Creek Follies variety show. Newsman John Cameron Swayze started his broadcasting career at KMBC. So did country singer Tex Owens and Paul Henning who would become quite famous for creating the Beverly Hillbillies and Petticoat Junction.
Most of what we talk about in this series comes from Arthur B. Church collection from the Marr Sound Archive at UMKC. Church was the founder of KMBC and the Marr Sound Archive acquired thousands of broadcasts on 16 inch lacquer disks and then digitized them.
In some cases, they were literally the first cut of history. Chuck Haddix, archivist of the collection, says KMBC broadcast everything; news, sports, farm reports, music, comedy and programs for women.
“They were pioneers in putting women on the radio. Also, there were a number of women on staff,” he said. “At that time they programmed according to the target audience. And those men of course worked during the day at that time. And women were often homemakers and so they did programs like soap operas and programs to improve women's housekeeping.”
Things like The Woman in the Store, heard Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays from from 10:15 to 10:30 in the morning at A&P and Milgrams stores around Kansas City.
The announcer introduction said the hosts would ask incisive questions and the audience would hear the drama. Truth be told there wasn’t any drama and the show was really a vehicle to sell Wilson Hams and other Wilson pork products. How the women in the store described themselves stuck with me. They were always Mrs. so-and-so, rarely using their own first names.
They preferred talking about their husbands and kids and took little credit for housework and child rearing. And when asked where they live, everyone gave their exact address. Talk about a different time.
Co-host Beulah Karney was an impressive women for any generation. She started at KMBC in 1935 and ended her career on radio and TV in Chicago.
But before that she was the women’s page editor at the L.A. Times, had a syndicated national column on nutrition and then supervised 10,000 cannery workers for the federal government before her broadcasting career, according to a 1945 profile in the Harrisburg Telegraph. And after retiring, just to keep busy it seems, she wrote three novels.
Another popular program aimed at women was, simply enough, called “Today’s Women of Kansas City” sponsored by Chasnoff’s a downtown ready-to-wear store for women that was in business in Kansas City until 1983.
One show in 1938 featured Opal Hill, one of the founders of the LPGA and one of the best female golfers ever. She would win hundreds of tournaments and awards, according to her UPI obituary.