How Kids Can Learn from World War II Radio Programs.

The following is an updated post I wrote years ago for an experimental blog on instructional technology and the idea to connect yesterday's media for today's kids.

When you were in school, many of the courses that you had to take may have seen miles away from your everyday life and interest.  When the lesson did seem to connect to you, suddenly the information had more meaning. Ask yourself this; when your teachers or professors tried to explain the many great wars of history, did you remember the statistics, or did you memorize the posters, music, and images of those events.

History can be exciting with movies, audio recordings, movie posters, book covers, reenactments of forgotten history facts, and exhibit items from and about different time periods. Visuals, audios, and dramatizations can give you a better understanding of the beliefs, attitudes, fears, hope, and dreams of a past generation.  

In this post, I will present random ideas about how to use digital and traditional media to enhance a history lesson for learners of all ages.  

It's Adventure Time with Little Orphan Annie

Every holiday season millions of people love to watch "A Christmas Story" (1983) a movie based on the works of Jean Shepherd. Taking place in a mixture of the 1930s & 1940s culture a viewer can pick up on the popular entertainment of the times. Little Ralphie's favorite juvenile radio programs like Red Ryder, The Lone Ranger, and Little Orphan Annie are mentioned and we get a feel for how exciting and a huge part of life they were for him. A child today can get this feeling if they heard one of these programs in context (before television, first electric broadcast media in the home, decoder rings, etc.)

Young Americans - Do Your Part For The War Effort

Even before the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th, 1941, wartime propaganda ideas spread to every medium:  comic books, box-office blockbusters, songs, and radio "the theater of the imagination".  

Image from Comic Vine http://www.comicvine.com/little-orphan-annies-junior-commandos/49-36002/ 

Almost every popular hero of the time faced off against the Axis powers. Radio and comic strip heroine Little Orphan Annie led the fictional Junior Commandos. This concept of young people making a difference on the home front was so popular that many local Junior Commando units were initiated throughout the country. The Associated Negro Press praised Annie's creator, cartoonist Harold Grey, for including an African American in the comic version. The projects that young Americans contributed to included metal scrap drives and paper collections to add to resources overseas.  An idea like the Junior Commandos can lead to a project in which young learners compare volunteering of the past to the present and create a new community service project. 

Episodes of the Annie radio series are scarce, and none broadcast after Pearl Harbor are available. However, episodes of other radio programs geared toward young audiences like The Green Hornet, and Don Winslow of the Navy, are available. Some of these broadcasts include announcements for public service to help the American war effort. Listening to surviving episodes of these programs can transport a listener back to the Golden Age of Radio and a child's world of World War II.  

HERE ARE SOME DISCUSSION TOPICS.

• Media always shapes how we feel about the past, present, and future.  How does the media from the past make you feel about that time period?
• Is the media portrayal accurate and if not why any exaggeration?
• Are there any similarities between the media of this time period and the media you are experiencing now?
• Is there anything you would like to see re-emerge in our society? Not re-emerge?
• What do you think about the technology of the time?

TO USE WITH OTHER TIME PERIODS.

• Use Radio broadcasts of historical events to re-create the surprise and wonder of Americans.  For example, you can download the news bulletins of John F. Kennedy's assassination, the moon landing, and Martin Luther King Jr's "I Have A Dream Speech"  for a study of the 1960s. 

HOW TO INTEGRATE WITH MODERN TECHNOLOGY
Many radio programs are in the public domain (although for the best quality it much better to order from a radio drama company).  The Internet Archive http://www.archive.org/ has hundreds of wartime broadcasts including news broadcasts, music, and speeches which can be downloaded and incorporated into a presentation, or a blog.

• Audio clips can be mixed with visuals to create an effective presentation. 
• Projects can be planned to recreate the entertainment style of a time period like recreating war-time news or entertainment broadcasts using Voice Thread or Microsoft PowerPoint. 

LINKS
Internet Archive Old-Time Radio Page
http://www.archive.org/details/oldtimeradio 

Radio Spirits - America's leading seller of high-quality old-time radio broadcasts.
www.radiospirits.com

Old Time Radio Researchers Library - Massive collection of free to download Golden Age radio programs 

http://otrrlibrary.org/

Don't' Touch That Dial:  Radio Programming In American Life:  Wartime Radio 1939 -1945.
This is an impressive history that covers programs that adults would have also enjoyed. 
http://jfredmacdonald.com/wartime.htm 

When Captain America Fires His Blazing Gun? The Republic Serial at 75 and the Decline of War-Time Heroics

1944 newspaper ad for Captain America serial. 

In 1943 at the peak of World War II there were nine Saturday morning cliffhanger serials, all but two of which featured wartime storylines. The most famous chapter play of the year, Columbia Pictures' The Batman (1943), pitted the DC comics character against a Japanese spy. Also popular was Republic Pictures' The Masked Marvel (1943, which also recently turned 75), that like "Batman" featured a two-fisted masked hero against an Axis saboteur. They remain key efforts by Hollywood to include wartime themes in the serial genre that was largely geared toward younger audiences.

As early as January 1944 (but officially the week of February 5th) Republic's newest serial Captain America hit theaters. The 15 chapter serial is a small landmark for being the first film adaptation of any Marvel Comics superhero. It is widely known that the storyline and character portrayed bear no resemblance to the Timely (Marvel) comics figure of super-soldier Steve Rogers. Instead this Captain America is the costumed identity of district attorney Grant Gardener (Dick Purcell, in his final role; he died only a few months after the film's release) in his battle against the Scarab (Lionel Atwill), in reality a museum curator plotting revenge and the theft of advanced scientific weapons. There is no "mighty shield", kid sidekick Bucky Barnes, no Axis Powers, or any sign of any superpowers.

What makes the storyline changes extra interesting, in context of the time period, is that compared to 1943 only ONE serial out of the nine released from 1944 employed a wartime theme or villain, Universal's "The Great Alaskan Mystery". Throughout the year there was a steady return to the normal range of storylines associated with the genre like the fantasy adventure Haunted Harbor and the jungle favorite "The Tiger Woman". In 1945, the last year of the war, there was a spike of three war themed serials, Jungle Queen, The Master Key, and Secret Agent X-9, all form Universal Studios.

Newspaper ad for "Captain America" from the January 7th, 1944 edition of the Elmira (New York) Star Gazette. Notice there is no indication of the changes to the character. It is clear that "boys and girls" are the target audience with the free passes given out in local schools. 

Decades ago, serial historians suggested that this Captain America was made into a gun-toting, two-fisted district attorney because the script was originally written for another character "Mr. Scarlett". While this is a probable reason, another theory I propose is due to the overall decline in wartime themes in serial storylines in 1944 as the Allied Forces were approaching victory, there may have also been a push to eliminate elements from the Captain America character that would affect how seriously young audiences would take the war, and this may have led to a complete rewrite of the character for his screen debut.

1955 ad for the "Return of Captain America". The serial was popular enough for a re-release even after the end of the original "Captain America Comics" run. 

Captain America was popular enough for a theatrical re-release in 1953 as "Return of Captain America".

Clip of the cliffhanger ending of Chapter 1 "The Purple Death", and beginning of Chapter 2 "Mechanical Executioner". 

"Magic Shadows" was a Canadian series that would show American movie serials on TVOntario.
Captain America (1944) appears sporadically on many American and Canadian TV schedules

*(added April 26, 2019) The Captain America serial was reintroduced to new audiences in the 1970s via American and Canadian TV shows that played vintage movie serials to kids. Like most older millennials I rented "Captain America" from my local public library on VHS tapes in the 1990s. To date the serial has never had a re-release on DVD and Blu-Ray from a remastered 35mm print.