Tuesday, December 31, 2013

Cascade Tunnel dedication broadcast – content

The broadcast of January 12, 1929, effectively launched the Empire Builders series by drawing attention to the Great Northern Railway and allowing them to inform the listening public about the new weekly series.

While most of the Empire Builders broadcasts were conducted as a form of entertainment (dramatic sketches, musical performances, or both combined), the initial broadcast of January 12 was a kind of manufactured news event. By sponsoring (paying for) this one-hour broadcast, the GN purchased the opportunity to assemble whoever and whatever they wanted to in order to advertise the Great Northern Railway. The focal point of the entire broadcast was the new 7.9-mile Cascade Tunnel through the northern Cascade Mountains in the state of Washington. This was a significant event in its own right, for a number of reasons. For a good, simple overview (and additional links to other resources), check this site out:  http://www.uh.edu/engines/epi2860.htm

Additionally, the broadcast itself was no mean feat. It was conducted coast-to-coast over 36 NBC affiliates. NBC had only been capable of broadcasting coast-to-coast for a matter of about three weeks. This was easily the most ambitious and complex broadcast yet attempted by the young radio company. Speakers and performers were stationed at the following locations during the broadcast:

  • New York City (NBC broadcast studios)
  • Berne, WA (East portal of the Cascade Tunnel)
  • Scenic, WA (West portal of the Cascade Tunnel)
  • Philadelphia, PA
  • San Francisco, CA
  • Washington, DC
The GN issued a pamphlet announcing their plans for the big Cascade Tunnel dedication broadcast. It laid out the basic plan for the broadcast and the various personalities scheduled to appear. This pamphlet also hinted at some of the complexity of the broadcast, saying: “The inexorable hands of stop watches will govern the movement of this program and these watches in turn will be synchronized with electric clocks on the Atlantic and Pacific Coasts, adjusted to the second with the clocks that govern the operation of the Great Northern Railway.”

What follows is a break-down of the elements of the broadcast, with approximate elapsed time for each element.






 

Sunday, December 22, 2013

The first broadcast - the opening and dedication of the Cascade Tunnel on January 12, 1929

Two days prior to the first of the Empire Builders weekly broadcasts, the GN went on the air with a special program to celebrate and advertise the opening and dedication of the GN's new 7.79-mile Cascade Tunnel. It took three years to dig out and construct the tunnel. A banquet was held on May 1, 1928, to celebrate the milestone of holing through from both the east and west faces.

Menu for the holing through banquet held May 1 1928
Menu for the Holing Thru Banquet to celebrate the tunneling crews meeting from east and west.


Plans to air the Empire Builders series as a corporate advertising campaign had been in the works for many months when the GN teamed up with the young NBC radio network to broadcast the Cascade Tunnel opening on January 12, 1929. With the first of their Monday night broadcasts just two days after, the GN publically referred to the January 12th broadcast as the first of the Empire Builder series. It's a bit of a stretch, but since the GN called it the first broadcast of the series, it is included in the total count of broadcasts - a total of 104, from January 12, 1929, to June 22, 1931.


Emcee Graham McNamee at the Cascade Tunnel dedication 1-12-1929
Graham McNamee at the east portal of the Cascade Tunnel



Veteran radio announcer Graham McNamee was hired to be emcee for the program celebrating the opening of the Cascade Tunnel. McNamee was already a household name by that time, having participated in many high profile radio events up to this point. Sharing the MC duties with McNamee was Phillips Carlin, likewise a well-recognized personality in the radio business.  In fact, the two of them had teamed up to broadcast the past three baseball World Series.


Many dignitaries were brought together to speak or otherwise participate in the broadcast. Heard on the broadcast were Pennsylvania Railroad president W. W. Atterbury, GN president Ralph Budd, and president-elect of the United States, Herbert Hoover.


The broadcast, scheduled to last a full hour, actually dragged on for about 6 extra minutes. This was due to some difficulties encountered by the electric locomotives that were idling just inside the east portal of the tunnel while the broadcast activities were taking place. This caused the train's passage through the tunnel to be delayed.

A brief audio/video clip is provided below (wmv file format) - let me know if it does not appear for you (a possible problem if you're using a Mac).






At the end of the broadcast, co-announcer Phillips Carlin explained that listeners could tune in Empire Builders on Monday nights, beginning with the first of a three-part episode of the life of James J. Hill on Monday, January 14, 1929.


To advertise the start of the Empire Builders series, the GN placed advertisements in newspapers around the country. Here's one example.



Remarkably, though, over the years the GN did very little to advertise this radio program. It helps to understand this, however, when you realize the radio series was itself an advertising campaign. It must have seemed totally illogical to advertise the advertising, but today we could relate to such a strategy if they had. But back in the day, about the only thing the GN did to call attention to the radio series was to post a couple of newspaper advertisements (usually one the day of the Monday broadcast, and later on, an occasional advertisement the day AFTER the broadcast) and some subtle references to it in other GN magazine ads and in their public timetables. Very little time, effort, or money was devoted to increasing attention to the radio series or to increasing its popularity.

Monday, December 16, 2013

A discussion about this blog and the Empire Builders Radio Series



Harvey Hays,Old Timer,Pioneer
Actor Harvey Hays (aka "the Pioneer, aka "the Old Timer")

Since this is a blog, and not a “web site” (although that may be in my future as well – we’ll see), let’s get started with a discussion of the Empire Builders radio series. 

Where to begin? Somewhere in the general vicinity of the beginning, I suppose. 

Rather than jumping into a complete historical report on the Empire Builders, I’d like to know what brings you to this blog. What are the circumstances that drew you here? What is your interest in Empire Builders? Do you think of yourself primarily as a railroad enthusiast? A fan of Old Time Radio (OTR)? A history junkie? Fascination with radio/Hollywood stars? Following up on some genealogy leads? Something else? 

For me, this topic represents an ongoing area of interest that I expect to continue researching and learning about for some time. While I have developed a very solid factual foundation, there are many unique aspects of this story that I have yet to understand. I am hopeful that this blog will be, among other things, a means for me to get in touch with others who have knowledge of this topic that I can learn about.

Soon – possibly in March, 2014 – I expect to have a 40-page article published about the Empire Builders radio series. This will be part of the quarterly publication of the Great Northern Railway Historical Society (GNRHS). When the publication is assured, I will confirm it on this blog and provide information on how anyone not a member of GNRHS can obtain a copy.

I was drawn to this story for several reasons. I’ve been generally interested in railroads since I was a little kid. By my teens I began to develop an interest in history, nostalgia, and antiques/collectibles. I soon learned even a kid with only his lawn mowing money as a source of income could find and afford to buy some interesting pieces of railroading history. Thus began a hobby of collecting railroad antiques and artifacts that has persisted for nearly forty years. But merely collecting such things is not quite enough. Surrounded by all these pieces of history one becomes intrigued by how they were created and distributed. Beyond the merely utilitarian value of ephemeral objects, how did they impact people’s lives? How did they help create a framework for our cultural foundations? Who were the talented people who created the advertising material?

Although I consider myself a collector, I am careful to avoid being an accumulator (or worse, a hoarder). There is a purpose to my collecting. I have some specific goals in mind when I decide what to pursue. In many cases, I look for topics represented by my collections that inspire me to try to learn more. So in addition to being a collector, I am also an amateur historian. I conduct research as a hobby. No kidding. I really enjoy what I see as a treasure hunt to discover information about obscure topics.

I learned many years ago that the GN had been behind the Empire Builders radio show, but knew very little about it. Prior to the explosion of information-sharing available to us via the internet, there was very little information about the Empire Builders available in any one place. Almost nothing has ever been written about this radio series, and even now, much of what you can find on the internet or in books is woefully incomplete and in some cases, rife with inaccuracies.

One thing I hope to accomplish is set the record straight on a few issues that are not presently described accurately through other sources. I have compiled a complete program log of all 104 broadcast episodes. In many cases, I have confirmed the correct title of the program, as designated by the Great Northern Railway, original story author, or both. There are currently 9 or 10 broadcasts circulating on the internet that apparently originated from sound check discs made at the time of the live broadcasts. It seems that whoever first began wide dissemination of those recordings came up with their own titles for those episodes. Some are accurate, perhaps gained by consulting newspaper previews of the day, but many are clearly made up by whoever put the recordings out there for broad consumption. I will provide the correct titles where available to try to return some accuracy to those few existing samples of the series.

With regard to Empire Builders, it strikes me that there are multiple overlapping themes here that may provide a varied audience for the information I’m learning about. Among these themes are:

  • Early commercial radio history in the United States
  • Early efforts to make radio broadcasting pay (how do you make money in broadcasting?)
  • Ground-breaking innovations in early radio
    • Telling a story solely through sound
    • Effectively interweaving music throughout a radio broadcast
    • Developing effective sound effects to convey atmosphere and carry a story along
  • The aggressive use of radio broadcasting to advertise a transportation company – specifically a railroad
  • How a business assesses the effectiveness of their advertising investment, especially when the thing they are selling is a service
  • How to measure the value to a business of goodwill advertising
  • The impact of early radio series on pop culture in America
  • The development of theatrical or dramatic talent adapted to radio
  • The development of dramatic script writing for radio
  • The way railroad companies learned to utilize the marvels of radio for a range of purposes:
    • Operational use, such as allowing dispatchers to communicate with train crews, and freight conductors riding in a caboose to communicate with the locomotive crew
    • Providing on-train entertainment for passengers (and how to do this in a way that would allow people to either elect to listen to broadcasts or choose not to)
    • Using commercial radio to convey messages representing the interests of the company, and to engage in advertising meant to stimulate “brand loyalty” and increased business (for both freight and passenger traffic, as well as for facilities such as the hotels and concessions of Glacier National Park – served exclusively via rail by the Great Northern Railway)
I plan to use this blog to share some of what I’ve learned about the topics above, and hopefully to engage my blog visitors in discussing the unique aspects of this innovative radio series. I also hope to connect with people who are descendants of those who helped bring Empire Builders to the airwaves.

Saturday, December 14, 2013

Introduction

Empire Builders

A radio advertising campaign of the Great Northern Railway

    Basic timeline
  • January 12, 1929   Great Northern Railway goes on the air coast-to-coast with the dedication and opening of the new 7.79-mile Cascade Tunnel in the state of Washington
  • January 14, 1929   The first of 103 weekly broadcasts of Empire Builders is aired
 
 
  • June 22, 1931  Empire Builders is aired for the final time