Skip to Main Content

CMTH 221: History of Broadcasting: About this Guide

This guide is intended to help students with research assignments about the history of broadcasting.

This guide is intended to help students with research assignments in History of Broadcasting courses taught by Professor Donna Acerra with an emphasis on the media history project and identifying sources in the library's collections for your chosen topic. Review the assignment prompt and basic guidelines below and then use the other pages of the guide to help you with your research.

Your class also has an embedded librarian in Blackboard, who you can contact directly or meet with for more help. If your embedded librarian is not available, you can also work with other NCC librarians by visiting us in person at the research help desks in the libraries, messaging us through our Ask the Librarian chat, emailing your questions, calling us, or scheduling a Book a Librarian appointment. 

Research Help Hours

Visit us

 

 

Chat

 

Outside of posted hours, our Ask the Librarian chat is staffed by Visiting Librarians from our after-hours service.

 

Email

askthelibrarian@northampton.edu
 

Call

(610) 861-5359

 

Book a Librarian appointments

Request a Book a Librarian research consultation to meet or video chat on a day and time convenient to your schedule.

Your Embedded Librarian

Profile Photo
Diane Hahn
she / her

Follow Us

Search Our Library Q&As

The library has compiled answers to our most commonly asked questions in our Library Q&As. If you don't find what you are looking for, please send us your question.

Get Help from the Learning Center

Do you need someone to read over your paper or help you with citations? Visit the Learning Center or make an appointment online to meet with a tutor. 

They also have many guides and handouts available to help you create organized and grammatically correct papers.

Related Guides

Media History Project Assignment -- Guidelines & Reminders

For your final project in this class, you will be selecting a person or theme from your professor's "They Were There Too” topic suggestion list to research in detail and write a paper or create an informational podcast about.

Identify a minimum of 4 usable sources to help you tell the story of your person or analyze your theme. Write a question your paper or podcast will answer -- this can help you narrow your focus as you research.

Present your research either:

  1. Working from an outline, write a research paper of no fewer than 5 full pages (plus a works cited page). 
     
  2. Working from a script, produce an interesting and historically factual audio podcast of no less than 4:00 minutes in length and no more than 5:00 minutes. Your feature will consist of your narration, and actual sound clips relating to your topic (and historically relevant music, if necessary).

Review the assignment's full details in your Blackboard course site to make sure you aren't missing any other details.

Inspiration & Class Topics

The library's collection is rich with materials about the history of broadcasting, radio, and history. Want to browse through some of what we have? Need some inspiration to help you decide on a specific topic to research? See some highlighted resources below. 

Interested in borrowing one or more of these items? Visit our collections in-person or request items using our Library to Go and Library to Go PLUS service. Entries and chapters of titles in the reference collections will need to be photocopied or digitally scanned. Work with a librarian if you have questions or need help. 

Suggested Books for 'They Were There Too' Topics

Women Pioneers in Television : biographies of fifteen industry leaders

Available at Bethlehem

Includes: Peggy Charren, Gertrude Berg, Pauline Frederick, others

The Today Show: Transforming Morning Television

Available at Bethlehem

Includes: Barbara Walters

Selling Women's History: packaging feminism in twentieth-century American popular culture

Available at Bethlehem

Includes these chapters: "The Quaker girl turns modern" : how adwomen promoted history, 1910-1940, Broadcasting yesteryear : women's history on commercial radio, 1930-1945, Gallant American women : feminist historians and the mass media, 1935-1950

I'm an image.

Invisible Stars: A Social History of Women in American Broadcasting

Available at Bethlehem

Includes: Gertrude Berg, Agnes Nixon, Irna Phillips, Barbara Walters, Pauline Frederick, Eunice Randall, Anne and Frank Hummert, Bertha Brainerd, Cristina Saralegui, Cathy Liggins Hughes, Joan Ganz Cooney, Ora Nichols, Gracie Allen, Mary Livingstone, Portland Hoffa, Mary Margaret McBride, Edythe Meserand, others.

General Broadcasting History - Books, DVDs, & Streaming Video

Radio - Books, DVDs, & Streaming Video

Encyclopedia of American Radio, 1920-1960

Available in Reference at Bethlehem

The Encyclopedia of Women in Radio, 1920-1960

Available in Reference at Bethlehem

The Museum of Broadcast Communications encyclopedia of radio

3 Volumes
Available in Reference at Bethlehem

Hello, Everybody! : the dawn of American radio

Available at Bethlehem and Monroe

Historical Dictionary of American Radio

Available in Reference at Bethlehem

Television - Books, DVDs, & Streaming Video

Encyclopedia of Television

4 volumes
Available in Reference at Bethlehem

Television: A Biography

Available at Bethlehem

How Television Invented New Media

Available at Bethlehem

Television: The First Fifty Years

Available in Oversize at Bethlehem

History in the Media: Film & Television

Available in Reference at Bethlehem and Monroe

Historical Dictionary of African American Television

Available in Reference at Bethlehem