NRR Project: Fiorello LaGuardia reads the comics (July 8, 1945)

 

NRR Project: Fiorello LaGuardia reads the comics

Broadcast July 8, 1945

Go to Cary O’Dell’s explanatory essay for not only an extensive outline of this entry but a look at the political uses of radio broadcasting during the period.

Fiorello LaGuardia (1882-1947) was an extraordinary politician who is most famous for serving as the mayor of New York City from 1934 to 1946. He was progressive, reform-minded, gregarious, a natural and ebullient communicator.

Growing up, he worked all kinds of jobs. He earned a law degree and began to work in the system. He was the deputy attorney general of the state, and went on to serve as a Congressman, He won the mayoral election and got to work.

He was a little dynamo, a short, squat figure with tons of energy. He got the city back on its feet, helped the poor, improved the city’s infrastructure. He was an interventionist – he outlawed burlesque houses, pinball machines. When Joe Simon and Jack Kirby were threatened by American Nazis over their creation of comic-book hero Captain America, LaGuardia provided protection for them.

Most memorably though it is his widely publicized reading of the comics to New York City’s children (over New York City’s radio station, WNYC) that he is remembered for. The reason for this was a strike by newspaper delivery personnel. LaGuardia disapproved; his solution to the deprivation of the funny papers to the children of the city was simple and direct – he read them to the kids.

Listening to an excerpt, it is clear LaGuardia was a practiced showman. With great enthusiasm he describes the panels from the cartoons and reads the dialogue, interrupting to editorialize about how a life in crime results in misery.

For three weeks, LaGuardia kept it up. And it was a political stunt, sure, another platform for the mayor to direct his beliefs through. But he was engaging.

The strike ended. Things got back to normal. But many would remember the chipper voice of New York’s “Little Flower” mayor breathlessly updating us to the status of Dick Tracy.

The National Recording Registry Project tracks one writer’s expedition through all the recordings in the National Recording Registry in chronological order. Next time: The Guiding Light.’