Derek W Vaillant - Across the Waves

THE HISTORY OF COMMUNICATION

Robert W. McChesney and John C. Nerone, editors

A list of books in the series appears at the end of this book.

How the United States
and France Shaped the
International Age of Radio

DEREK W. VAILLANT

2017 by the Board of Trustees

of the University of Illinois

All rights reserved

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Vaillant, Derek, author.

Title: Across the waves : how the United States and France shaped the international age of radio / Derek W Vaillant.

Description: Urbana : University of Illinois Press, 2017. | Series: History of communication | Includes bibliographical references and index. | Identifiers: LCCN 2017025367 (print) | LCCN 2017047254 (ebook) | ISBN 9780252050015 (ebook) | ISBN 9780252041419 (hardback) | ISBN 9780252082931 (paperback)

Subjects: LCSH : Radio broadcastingUnited StatesHistory20th century. | Radio broadcastingFranceHistory20th century. | United StatesForeign relationsFrance. | FranceForeign relationsUnited States. | BISAC:SOCIAL SCIENCE / Media Studies. | HISTORY / United States / 20th Century. | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Industries / Media & Communications Industries.

Classification: LCC PN 1991.3. U 6 (ebook) | LCC PN 1991.3. U 6 U\V 37 2017 (print) | DDC 384.540973/0944dc23

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2017025367

A number of conversations that occurred early during this project come to mind at this happy moment of completion. I am grateful to Jean-Jacques Cheval, Charles Rearick, Gabrielle Hecht, Raymond Grew, and Joshua Cole for their insights. Susan Douglas read innumerable drafts, wrote letters, and offered wise counsel. Michele Hilmes and Francis Couvares offered critical support early on that helped launch the project. Victoria De Grazia, Kate Lacey, and Gabrielle Hecht read an early draft of the manuscript and offered invaluable and perceptive feedback. I also gratefully acknowledge those who read or commented on parts of this book as a work in progress, including Herrick Chapman, Judith G. Coffin, Suzanne Moon, Aswin Punathambekar, Rebecca Scales, Emily Thompson, Katherine Sender, Paddy Scannell, Liz Anderson, and Jason Loviglio. Conferences for the American Historical Association, International Communication Association, Society for Cinema and Media Studies, Society for French Historical Studies, and Society for the History of Technology all provided a forum for presentations and dialogue, as did the Science, Technology, Medicine and Society Speaker Series and the Communication Studies Colloquium at the University of Michigan. Research support came from the Council for International Exchange of Scholars (CIES), the U-M Associate Professor Support Program, and the National Endowment for the Humanities.

I owe an extraordinary debt to Jean-Jacques Cheval, who sponsored my first trip to France on behalf of the Franco-American Commission and the Fulbright Research Scholar Program. Steeped in French media sociology with formidable expertise in the Chicago electric blues tradition, culinary concerns, and all matters Breton, Jean-Jacques continues to be an extraordinary colleague and friend. Through his efforts, I came to know the faculty at the Maison des sciences de lhomme dAquitaine at the University of Bordeaux III, particularly Annie Lenoble-Bart and Andr-Jean Tudesq. Before his untimely death, Andr-Jean graciously fielded queries from a neophyte and generously shared his vast knowledge.

Thank you as well to past and present members of the Groupe de recherches et dtudes sur la radio (GRER) who welcomed me to their merry band, especially Christophe Bennet, tienne Damome, Batrice Donzelle, Jean-Jacques Ledos, Pascal Ricaud, Blandine Schmidt, and Bernard Wuillme. In Paris, Pascal Griset, Denis Marchal, and Ccile Madel shared thoughts and suggestions.

I gratefully acknowledge colleagues and friends in the North American Radio Studies Association and the field of sound studies for your inspiration and camaraderie, especially Kathleen Battles, Art Blake, Dolores Ins Casillas, Christine Ehrick, David Goodman, Michele Hilmes, Bill Kirkpatrick, Jason Loviglio, Elena Razlogova, Alex Russo, Joshua Shepherd, Susan Smulyan, Michael J. Socolow, Christopher Sterling, Jonathan Sterne, David Suisman, Shawn VanCour, Neil Verma, and David Weinstein.

Current and former colleagues in the Department of Communication Studies helped make this a better book. I thank particularly Scott Campbell, Tony Collings, Jimmy Draper, Rowell Huesmann, Shazia Iftkhar, Nojin Kwak, Robin Means-Coleman, Russ Neuman, Scott Selberg, Katherine Sender, and Julia Sonnevend. In the Department of History, Howard Brick, Kathleen Canning, Jay Cook, Jean Hbrard, Gabrielle Hecht, Matt Lassiter, Gina Morantz-Sanchez, and Geoff Eley offered collegiality and inspiration.

I wish to thank my dedicated readers at the University of Illinois Press: Kate Lacey, James Schwoch, and an anonymous reviewer for your excellent comments and suggestions that sharpened this project. My editor, Daniel Nasset, championed this project from the start and did a great job of author whispering and running interference when needed. Marika Christofides, Tad Ringo, and Geof Garvey offered their production expertise. I am proud to be a part of The History of Communication series, which exists thanks to the enterprise of Robert W. McChesney and John C. Nerone. I also gratefully acknowledge the Johns Hopkins University Press and the University of Pennsylvania Press for permission to adapt material previously appearing in Derek W. Vaillant, At the Speed of Sound: Techno-Aesthetic Paradigms in U.S.French International Broadcasting, 19251942, which appeared in Technology and Culture , and Occupied Listeners: The Legacies of Interwar Radio for France during World War II, in Sound in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction , edited by Susan Strasser and David Suisman.

I cannot begin to acknowledge all of the archivists and specialist librarians who aided this project over the years, but I will single out Michael Henry at the Library of American Broadcasting, Lee C. Grady at the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Karen King at the National Public Broadcasting Archives, David Langbart at the National Archives, and Andy Lanset at WNYC. Corinne Gaultier and Christine Barbier-Bouvet served my research needs at the Bibliothque nationale franaise and the Institut national de laudiovisuel in Paris. Bertrand Cousin, Thierry Lefebvre, and Aurlie Zbos at the Muse de Radio France helped obtain an elusive photographic image. University of Michigan librarians and media specialists Barbara Alvarez, Charles Antonelli, Jennifer Bonnet, Shevon Desai, Annette Haines, Phil Hallman, Michael McLean, and Bryan Squib offered their considerable expertise. Justin Jocque of the Stephen S. Clark Library created the maps in this book and patiently supervised my students Elena Lamping and Henry Duhaime as they geocoded and constructed an ARC/gis radio carriage map. Andrea Comiskey, Christopher Decou, Helena Javier, Julia Lippman, Edward Sloan, and Edward Timke contributed research assistance. Annemarie Iddins provided crucial editorial assistance and offered insights from her work on radio in Morocco.

Judith Bate Acheson, E. N. Brandt, Paulette Sabarthe, and Douglas Siler generously shared memories with me. Sadly, not all of you have lived to see this book completed. I hope I have faithfully retold your stories. I gratefully acknowledge the contributions of Miriam Crnesse, who answered questions, exchanged emails, and helped me obtain copies of photographs with the able assistance of Thierry Boccon-Gibod. Miriam became a long-distance friend over the many years I worked on this project. Her dedication to her husbands memory and his work left a deep impression.