Radio

Women have been a part of commercial radio since its inception in 1920. In radio's first four decades, the majority were either secretaries or entertainers, but even in that more traditional time in American history, a few women were station owners, sales managers, program directors, and occasionally news commentators or announcers. A major change occurred as a result of the women's movement of the 1960s and 1970s, and more women were able to enter areas of broadcasting previously closed to them; today it is not unusual to hear women as disc jockeys, news anchors, and talk show hosts, and a number of women are general managers or owners.

The first woman announcer was probably Sybil Herrold, the wife of early broadcast pioneer Charles “Doc” Herrold. As early as 1912, she hosted a weekly radio program on her husband's station at the Herrold College of Wireless in San Jose, California. When the first three commercial stations went on the air in 1920, most of their announcers, and all of their managers, were men, but at one station, 1XE (later called WGI) in Medford Hillside, Massachusetts, there was a female announcer, Eunice Randall. Randall not only announced some of the programs, but, as time passed, she read bedtime stories to the children, reported the news, and sometimes performed as a vocalist. In the early 1920s, when radio was still new, gender roles were not yet rigid; sometimes, it was a man who read the bedtime stories. A few other stations had a female announcer, and some had a female musical director, who arranged the programs. (Radio always needed live performers, since audiotape had not yet been invented.) Although some women were studio hostesses (the equivalent of a receptionist), just as many found work as vocalists. Some of the best-known opera singers, like Madame Louise Homer and Mary Garden, were heard on radio, as was African American blues singer Bessie Smith. The first woman to own a radio station was Marie Zimmerman, who began operating WIAE in Vinton, Iowa, in the summer of 1922; the next two women owners were preacher Aimee Semple McPherson (KFSG in Los Angeles in 1924) and theater owner Mary Costigan (KFXY in Flagstaff, Arizona, in 1925).

Now that women had the right to vote, members of the newly founded League of Women Voters sponsored informational radio programs, and female politicians took to the airwaves to campaign; some male journalists were surprised to discover that women did not automatically vote for someone just because she was female. Among the news makers heard on radio in the early 1920s were pioneering feminist Carrie Chapman Catt and Harvard astronomer Annie Jump Cannon, as well as a number of female movie stars, authors, and poets. Thanks to radio, the average person became more aware of women in nontraditional occupations, as women lawyers, business executives, and doctors also gave radio talks.

Despite early female radio station owners, program directors, and even at times news commentators or announcers, women did not enter the realm of disc jockeying until the 1960s and 1970s. Radio news has not progressed as far—21st-century radio stations usually use a team with a male anchor and a female coanchor to report the news.

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