Name: Boston Radio
Brand: Donna Halper
SKU: 9780738574103
Price: 24.99 USD
Availability: InStock

Boston Radio

9780738574103

$24.99

Boston's radio history begins with pioneering station 1XE/WGI, one of America's first radio stations, and includes the first station to receive a commercial license, WBZ; the first FM radio network, W1XOJ and W1XER; and one of the first news networks, the Yankee News Service. Nationally known bandleaders like Joe Rines and Jacques Renard were first heard on Boston radio, as was one of the first weathercasters, E. B. Rideout. The city has been home to a number of legendary announcers, such as Bob and Ray, Arnie Ginsburg, Dick Summer, Dale Dorman, and Charles Laquidara; talk show giants like Jerry Williams and David Brudnoy; and sports talkers like Eddie Andelman and Glenn Ordway. Many Boston radio personalities, such as Curt Gowdy, Big Brother Bob Emery, Don Kent, and Louise Morgan, found fame on television but first established themselves on Boston's airwaves. Since 1920, Boston radio has remained vibrant, proving that live and local stations are as important as ever.

Cover image for Boston Radio, isbn: 9780738574103

Boston's Theater District

9781467105897

$24.99

Downtown Boston once thrived as a dazzling bohemia of burlesque halls, movie palaces, dime museums, and regal stages. By 1915, more than 20 theaters crowded along a quarter-mile stretch of lower Washington Street. The theater district gave birth to vaudeville and incubated some of America's most darling musicals and daring new dramas en route to Broadway. Theatergoers flocked to Tremont and Boylston Streets to watch the latest tryouts. Some productions flopped; others, like Oklahoma! and Paul Robeson's Othello, were runaway hits. Still others earned the coveted seal of disapproval, "Banned in Boston," from zealous city censors. Overrun by seedy venues in the 1970s, the Combat Zone, as it came to be known, seemed to justify old Puritan fears that the stage would corrupt public morals. Only in recent years has the district rebounded through careful restoration of storied playhouses like the Boston Opera House, the Majestic, and the Colonial--grand vestiges of a booming cultural corridor still vibrant today.

Cover of Boston's Theater District featuring a vintage Boston street with ornate storefronts and bold title banner

The Wreck of the Circus Ship Royal Tar

9781467158510

$24.99

Lost in the Flames

On October 21, 1836, a bustling crowd gathered at the docks in Saint John, New Brunswick, to witness an extraordinary spectacle. The steamship Royal Tar was embarking on yet another voyage from New Brunswick to Portland, Maine, laden with a cargo of peculiar passengers. For this fateful voyage, the Royal Tar had been transformed into a circus ship. Onlookers watched as cages slowly rolled past—exotic birds in one, two lionesses in another and the regal striped Bengal tiger in a third. Then the star of the show slowly made his way across the gangplank. Mogul, the mighty Asian elephant, took his spot on the upper deck of the ship as it steamed out of the port.

After four days of stormy weather, a devastating fire engulfed the ship. The ensuing chaos left thirty-two people dead, and many of the animals were pushed overboard into the frigid waters of Penobscot Bay in a last-ditch effort to save them. The rest died in their cages. Jane Parks Gardner reveals how this tragic event left an indelible mark on Maine’s maritime history.

Cover image for The Wreck of the Circus Ship Royal Tar, isbn: 9781467158510

Rhode Island Radio

9780738576695

$24.99

Never overwhelming anyone with its geographical size, Rhode Island has always managed to find a niche in the broadcasting industry. From the birth of radio through the start of the department store "wars" in the 1920s, Rhode Island radio became a national trendsetter. The Shepard brothers created the Yankee Network, which launched the concept of sharing programming with affiliated stations. Several formats became standard-bearers for listening concepts throughout the country, from the Top 40 format of the 1950s and 1960s to present-day adult contemporary and sports talk radio. Rhode Island personalities and stations have played a large part in overall industry concepts and growth. Salty Brine, Sherm Strickhouser, Jack Comley, Ed Pearson, Ernie Anderson, and Don Pardo are all names and voices familiar to audiences in the Ocean State and beyond.

Rhode Island Radio book cover showing a vintage radio broadcast setup on a hill overlooking a city

Hartford Radio

9780738576664

$24.99

Hartford Radio offers a glimpse into the history of the area's broadcast stations and the people who ran them.

Radio broadcasting has been an integral part of the history of Hartford since the early part of the 20th century. WDRC was the state's first station (1923), and they helped pioneer FM radio technology in the early 1940s. Many Hartford residents learned about the end of World War II via radio, and the medium played a key role in keeping people informed during the floods of 1938 and 1955, the Cuban Missile Crisis, and the great Northeast Blackout of 1965. Surprisingly, Hartford, the capital of ""the land of steady habits,"" saw two stations break from the pack to help bring the British Invasion to the state in the early 1960s. And thousands of schoolchildren eagerly listened to WTIC's legendary Bob Steele on wintery mornings as they excitedly awaited school closing announcements.

Hartford Radio book cover featuring a man in a hat at a vintage microphone.

The Saco Drive-In

9781626194533

$21.99

Families, teenagers, friends and sweethearts piled in their cars and filled the lot of Maine's first drive-in on opening night in 1939. A newsreel and cartoon rolled before the feature presentation, Forbidden Music, cast the first outdoor movie spell over the town of Saco. Families came for the fresh-air movie experience, while visitors in the 1950s and '60s enjoyed the dimly lit privacy. The community rallied to save the Saco Drive-In in 2013, voting to fund the transition to digital projection. Now, families and couples of the future can continue to enjoy cinema under the Maine sky. Join local author Camille Smalley as she recounts the history, films and memories of the Saco Drive-In.

Cover image for The Saco Drive-In, isbn: 9781626194533

Boston's Downtown Movie Palaces

9780738576312

$24.99

Since the late 1800s, Boston has been a trendsetter in the development of the movie business. It was here that many of the earliest public showings of moving images took place and the name nickelodeon first appeared on a storefront theater. In 1896, B.F. Keith added film to his Washington Street theater, then throughout his national chain of vaudeville houses. In 1914, Boston's Modern became the country's first theater with an installed sound projection system. Several years later, the city had its first movie palace: Marcus Loew's Orpheum. A magnet for theater architects, Boston became a center for elegant movie houses, including the Metropolitan, Keith Memorial, and Paramount. Thanks to civic leaders and academic institutions, many of Boston's theaters have been preserved and restored and are alive and well today.

Boston's Downtown Movie Palaces cover with a busy street scene and a bright marquee outside the Paramount theater.

History of Theater on Cape Cod, A

9781467142878

$21.99

Theater on the Cape began in 1916 when a group of artists and writers in Provincetown mounted a production of a one-act play, Bound East for Cardiff, by a little-known playwright, Eugene O’Neill. They staged the play in a rickety old theater on a wharf in what was then little more than a sleepy fishing village. From that artists’ colony—and others like it across the Cape and Islands—it grew into the constantly expanding theater universe it is today. The theatrical descendants of O’Neill and the Provincetown Players continue to present classical drama, contemporary hits and new, experimental works to audiences that have come to expect the best. In her tour of the theaters from Provincetown to Falmouth, author and entertainment columnist Sue Mellen reveals the rich past behind a unique cultural treasure.

Cover image for History of Theater on Cape Cod, A, isbn: 9781467142878

Lakewood Theatre

9781467125949

$29.99

Beginning as a humble vaudeville hall in the Skowhegan-Madison trolley park, Lakewood Theatre has graced the southwestern shore of Lake Wesserunsett in Madison, Maine, since the turn of the 20th century. Under the masterful guidance of Herbert L. Swett, a Bangor native and Bowdoin graduate, Lakewood eventually developed into a nationally renowned playhouse that was called the Broadway in Maine by the New York Times in its heyday, from 1925 until World War II. In the years following the war, Lakewood was operated by Swett's heirs and became a virtual who's who of both Broadway and Hollywood, until it nearly went dark in the early 1980s. Operating today as a nonprofit community theater, Lakewood is the official state theater of Maine and the oldest continually running summer theater in the country.