Radio Boston Goes to War: The ‘Strange Case of WRUL’ Revisited

Abstract

Drawing upon previously untapped archival sources, this article traces the evolution of nonprofit radio station WRUL between 1939 and 1942 when its founder, Walter Lemmon, sought to transform an experimental shortwave radio station into an international voice for democracy and resistance to Axis aggression. With substantial funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, the station emerged as the leading national voice for educational broadcasting by 1939. At this crucial juncture, WRUL’s development coincided with the onset of the Second World War and a bitter debate in the United States over American neutrality. At a time when the United States government did not have an international broadcasting agency, WRUL shifted from educational broadcasting to wartime advocacy backing the Committee to Defend America by Aiding the Allies and other interventionist groups. As a precursor to the Voice of America, WRUL attempted to keep its independence from governmental control and demonstrate that nonprofit broadcasting could serve an urgent public purpose. In the end the decision to bring American shortwave radio broadcasters firmly under the control of the government in 1942 signaled the end of WRUL’s attempt to become the wartime voice of American opposition to totalitarian and fascist governments.