Collection Guide
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The American Women Making History and Culture: 1963-1982 Collection
PRA.RS.001
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Table of contents
Language of Material:
English
Contributing Institution:
Pacifica Radio Archives
Title: Guide to the American Women Making History and Culture: 1963-1982 Collection
creator:
KPFA (Radio station : Berkeley, Calif.)
creator:
KPFK (Radio station : Los Angeles, Calif.)
creator:
KPFT-FM (Radio station : Houston, Tex.)
creator:
Pacifica Radio Archives
creator:
WBAI Radio (New York, N.Y.)
creator:
WPFW (Radio station : Washington, D.C.)
Identifier/Call Number: PRA.RS.001
Physical Description:
2024 Reels
Physical Description:
2.39 Terabytes
Physical Description:
156 Linear Feet
Date (bulk): 1963-1982
Date (inclusive): 1944-1994
Abstract: The American Women Making History and Culture: 1963-1982 collection includes 2,024 reel-to-reel tapes and 2,024 WAV files
preserved as part of the Pacifica Radio Archives’ 2013-2016 “American Women Making History and Culture: 1963-1982” (“American
Women”) preservation project. The recordings were selected as an “artificial collection” to document the Women’s movement
and second-wave feminism as it was broadcast on the Pacifica network. The collection also includes recordings that, though
they weren’t about feminism or women’s rights, are significant because they were produced by women or featured women important
to American history and culture at that time. Nearly all of the recordings were broadcast between 1963 and 1982 on a Pacifica
network station: KPFA - 94.1FM Berkeley, CA; KPFK - 90.7FM Los Angeles, CA; WBAI - 99.5FM New York, NY, KPFT - 90.1FM Houston,
TX; and WPFW - 89.3FM Washington, D.C. or via satellite. One thousand six hundred and ninety six reel-to-reel tapes were digitized
with funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC) of the National Archives and Records
Administration (NARA), and all 2,024 tapes are being stored at the University of Maryland’s Public Broadcasting Archive. The
2,024 WAV audio files are being stored at the Pacifica Radio Archives in North Hollywood, CA, the University of California,
Berkeley Library, and the Internet Archive in San Francisco, CA.
Material Specific Details: All of the recordings in this collection originated on ¼ inch reel tape, the majority being on 10-1/2” reels and several hundred
being on 7” reels. There are a few recordings from 5” reels. Most 10-1/2” reels contained a 1 hour (60 minute) program and
7” reels contained half-hour (30 minute) programs. Some of the 1 hour programs, however, were recorded on two 7” reels. Also,
programs longer than 1 hour appeared on multiple reels. These multi-reel recordings are designated with an Archive Number
that ends with the letter “A” (for part 1), “B” (for part 2), and so on. Multi-part programs are found in the finding aid
with multiple reels listed as part of one record (e.g. “reel KZ0560A, reel KZ0560B”).
The collection is arranged in 6 series, each being the Pacifica Radio Station (or entity) where the recording was produced
or first broadcast (based on information available).
Series 1: KPFA American Women’s Recordings, bulk 1963-1982
Series 2: KPFK American Women’s Recordings, bulk 1963-1982
Series 3: KPFT American Women’s Recordings, 1971-1987
Series 4: WBAI American Women’s Recordings, bulk 1963-1982
Series 5: WPFW American Women’s Recordings, 1976-1983
Series 6: Pacifica National Programming, 1973-1982
The items in each series are then arranged alphabetically by title of recording.
In 1946, Lewis Hill (1919-1957), a pacifist, Quaker, and Washington, D.C. newsman, established the Pacifica Foundation to
“…contribute to a lasting understanding between nations and between the individuals of all nations, races, creeds, and colors…[and]promote
the full distribution of public information.” (Pacifica Foundation Mission Statement, http://www.pacifica.org/about_mission.php)
On April 15, 1949, after three years of planning and fundraising, the first Pacifica Station – KPFA FM in Berkeley, CA – went
on the air, becoming the first broadcast entity to successfully experiment with listener sponsorship, now the backbone of
the public broadcasting system. In 1959, Pacifica expanded to Southern California with KPFK Los Angeles, and in 1960, New
York radio station WBAI was donated to Pacifica by owner Louis Schweitzer for broadcast in New York. In 1970 Pacifica’s Houston,
TX station KPFT began broadcasting, and Pacifica’s fifth station, WPFW in Washington, D.C. began broadcasting in 1977. All
five stations continue to broadcast under the Pacifica network today.
The Pacifica Radio Archives (“the Archives”), originally known as the Pacifica Tape Library, was established in 1972 to be
Pacifica’s preservation and distribution arm. The Archives are located in North Hollywood, CA in the KPFK radio building,
and are endowed with the mission to appraise, collect, organize, describe and preserve the creative work generated by, or
produced in association with Pacifica Radio, and make it available for research, reference, rebroadcast, or re-purposing (as
appropriate). The est. 100,000 historically significant reel-to-reel master audio tapes were deposited by Pacifica station
and network producers, and individual station program directors. Each program, including those in the American Women collection,
was deemed to be of importance, either for historic value, for copying and distribution to Pacifica and other public, community
and educational radio stations for broadcast, or because it would be of interest to researchers, documentarians or a significant
number of individual listeners. The American Women collection includes the Archives’ holdings from Pacifica radio entities
pertaining to the Women’s movement, or the period popularly known as second-wave feminism in the United States; from the publication
of The Feminine Mystique (Betty Friedan, 1963) until Congress failed to pass the Equal Rights Amendment in 1982.
All of the tapes in the American Women collection are recordings of programs broadcast by the Pacifica stations during the
collection time span, and accessioned by the Archives for distribution and safekeeping. This collection is but a fraction
of the total number of programs created at that time. Many tapes, for reasons of economy, were dubbed over and recycled in
order to save on costs of tape stock, and it is unknown how many of these programs are gone for good. We are indeed fortunate
that some of this crucial material was saved.
From its beginning in 1949, and through the Women’s movement era, Pacifica's noncommercial, listener-supported radio stations
opened their microphones to brave new thinkers, the disenfranchised, activists, and creative-types. Pacifica had unique access
to groups of people typically under-represented in the public record, and provided a comfortable, salon-type setting where
guests felt free to explore new ideas. Pacifica has always been dedicated to airing a spectrum of views, and views there were:
conservative, radical, all over the map. KPFA-Berkeley, KPFK-Los Angeles, and WBAI-New York broadcast some of the first programs
directly addressing the Women’s movement, and there were always key women programmers and staff at Pacifica’s oldest station,
KPFA-Berkeley. Pacifica Radio and the Archives’ collection pre-date National Public Radio by over twenty years, including
the years 1963-1971, which were pivotal to the American Women’s movement
Archives Director Brian DeShazor and the Archives team: Project Coordinator Adi Gevins, Project Archivist Jolene Beiser, Archivists
Joe Gallucci and Holly Rose McGee, and Production staff Edgar Toledo began work on the large-scale American Women project
in 2011, selecting recordings, and forming collaborations with the UC Berkeley Library, the Internet Archive, George Blood
L.P., and several women’s historians, politicians, artists, academics, and authors who would be instrumental to the NHPRC
grant-funded project. In 2013 the Archives was awarded the NHPRC Access to Historical Records grant, and grant-funded work
on the collection began in October 2013 and continued through January 2016.
Collection open for research.
RESTRICTED. Permissions, licensing requests, and all other inquiries should be sent in writing to Archives Director, Pacifica
Radio Archives, 3729 Cahuenga Blvd. West, North Hollywood, CA 91604, 800-735-0230 x 263, fax 818-506-1084, info at pacificaradioarchives
dot org, http://www.pacificaradioarchives.org.
This collection includes the Pacifica Radio Archives’ holdings of recordings broadcast by the Pacifica radio entities (KPFA-Berkeley,
CA; KPFK-Los Angeles, CA; WBAI-New York, NY; KPFT-Houston, TX; WPFW-Washington, DC; Pacifica National Programming (satellite))
pertaining to the Women’s movement and women’s lives during the period popularly known as second-wave feminism in the United
States. The recordings were broadcast between 1963 and 1982, and accessioned by Pacifica Radio Archives for distribution and
safekeeping in 1972 or directly after being broadcast. A small portion of the collection was sent to the Archives in more
recent years by the stations that originally broadcast the recordings or by the programs’ producers. This collection is but
a fraction of the total number of women’s programs created and broadcast at that time, but is all that was donated to and
held by the Archives.
The recordings in this collection were processed and cataloged by Pacifica Radio Archives archivists Jolene Beiser, Joseph
Gallucci, and Holly Rose McGee. The finding aid was completed by Jolene Beiser, Project Archivist, in March 2016. The work
was made possible through grant funding from the National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC).
This is an “artificial collection” of recordings broadcast on the Pacifica Network between 1963 and 1982 related to women’s
issues and second-wave feminism, or produced by and/or featuring women. Most of the recordings were selected because they
are women-focused or about women’s rights and feminism, but several more were included that were not created to document women’s
lives, but their subject matter, voice, and the time period they represent, do.
One thousand six hundred and ninety-six reel-to-reel tapes in this collection were digitized in 2014 and 2015 thanks to an
Access to Historical Records grant from the NHPRC. The 328 additional tapes in this collection had been digitized previous
to the NHPRC grant by the Archives or through other grant-funded projects at the Archives between 2003 and 2014. These 2,024
recordings were brought together to be preserved long-term at UC Berkeley and the California Digital Library, and to be made
more findable through this finding aid, the UC Berkeley Library catalog, Pacifica Radio Archives website, and the Internet
Archive.
The collection includes 2,024 reel tapes and 2,024 WAV audio files. The tapes were received by the Pacifica Radio Archives
in either the Los Angeles location (1972-1988) or North Hollywood location (1988-present) from the stations that originally
broadcast the recordings or from the program producers. The originating stations include: KPFA-Berkeley, KPFK-Los Angeles,
WBAI-New York City, KPFT-Houston, WPFW-Washington, D.C., and Pacifica National Programming (satellite). All 2,024 tapes are
now being stored at the University of Maryland’s Public Broadcasting Archive. The 2,024 WAV files are being stored on servers
at the Pacifica Radio Archives, the UC Berkeley Library, and the Internet Archive in San Francisco, CA.
Nearly all of the recordings have an indication that they were broadcast from one of the five Pacifica stations or satellite
sometime between 1963 and 1982. A handful of these recordings were recorded before 1963, but were re-broadcast during the
project’s date scope. Some of the recordings had no broadcast date, but they were sent to the Archives from a Pacifica station,
and were created sometime between 1963 and 1982, so are likely to have been broadcast during the project’s date scope as well.
The date listed in each recording’s record refers to the broadcast date (e.g. “KPFA, July 11, 1977”). Partial and approximated
dates are indicated numerically (e.g. “KPFA, 1982-uu-uu”, “KPFA, 1981-02-uu~”). The dates listed for each series record refer
to the creation date range for recordings in that series. (e.g. “KPFK American Women recordings, Series Two, Bulk 1963-1982,
Inclusive 1956-1990”).
[Title of recording],[date of recording], The American Women Making History and Culture: 1963-1982 collection, Pacifica Radio
Archives, North Hollywood, CA.
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Abortion
African American Women
African American women authors
Asian American women
Antinuclear movement
Equal Rights Amendment (Proposed).
Feminism
Lesbians
Nuclear disarmament.
Second-wave feminism
Women artists
Women authors
Women broadcasters
Women composers.
Women in the mass media industry.
Women's movement
Women musicians.
Women's rights
Women -- Social conditions.
Women -- United States -- History.
Women -- History.
Women -- United States.
KPFA (Radio station : Berkeley, Calif.)
KPFK (Radio station : Los Angeles, Calif.)
KPFT-FM (Radio station : Houston, Tex.)
Pacifica Radio Archives
WBAI Radio (New York, N.Y.)
WPFW (Radio station : Washington, D.C.)