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The American Women Making History and Culture: 1963-1982 Collection
PRA.RS.001  
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Collection Overview
 
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Description
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.
Background
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.
Extent
2024 Reels
Restrictions
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.
Availability
Collection open for research.