And now a word from our predecessors...

Mary-lou Snowden
Born in 1917
Long Island, NY.
Phone interview


What was your main form of getting information when you were living on your own?

“News papers, the radio and word of mouth. I used to get the Wall Street Journal. They had very interesting articles. ”

What about when you were a kid, what kind of media sticks out in your memory still?

“When we were children we listened to Jack Armstrong, Orphan Annie and a few other radio programs. We would listen to the radio every after noon. There was a media (news) station in Chicago I listened to a lot. PBS, I think, was the name of the station.

My mother was fond of television. She would watch the political campaigns and what not, things going on in congress and such. I never watched it with her because I was working and doing other things I was interested in when I wasn’t working. Sometimes I would watch the programs in the evening of reviews like the Ed Sullivan Show. I never watched the soaps, but those were on TV after radio became a secondary media.

Your mother and your aunt grew up watching the television. They couldn’t imagine life without television. My daughters asked if Grandpa and I used to watch television by candle light because they understood ELECTRICITY wasn’t always around, but they didn’t understand that TV came after electricity. They watched many children’s programs. Susan would watch the ads for Speedy Alka-Seltzer because she liked the character Peety”

What did you notice about ads on television versus radio?

“The ads became much more prominent and pushy with the shift from radio to television. TV shows would be on for 2 minutes and stop for an ad and it just got me so annoyed.”

What would be advertised on television? Were colleges and books advertised like they are now?
They advertised books. Not colleges except for a few colleges that had masters degrees programs you would write away for. Movie stars were on different programs often as guests and they would advertise movies, kind of like they do now though.


Did movies advertise on television, radio or print media more with the shift from radio to television?

They advertise movies more now than ever. In fact the movie industry was very afraid of television because they thought movies would take a dive to television popularity. Their method of thinking was why go out for a movie if you can have one in your home. Which obviously didn’t prove true. Television is more effective way to advertise for movies in my opinion. You can see what’s going on along with hearing it. I don’t recall any movie advertisements on radio.


Are these still the main forms of how you receive media?

“Now I listen to Fox and CNN on the television mostly. I’ll read the paper when I get the Wall Street Journal, but I don’t use the radio anymore.”

Were there any specific stories or ads that stuck out to you?

“I remember saving an article about a famous media woman. She did a lot of war photos; I recall this because she was a member of my sorority (ten years ahead) at Cornell. She had the first cover of life magazine.”

“They (life magazine) started covering war stories … I didn’t read much about them unless it was important. The invasion of France and the end of the war were the ones I looked into. It was very scary to see the photos and read the articles about the war.
- Marylou went on to say that many of the boys she knew in collage, including my Grandfather, had been drafted or joined up right away. I’d imagine part of the reason she didn’t read more on the war was because of the fear of hearing something had happened to them. Her campus had a P.A. system that would announce things about signing up for the war and any other MAJOR or emergency situational information. (When it wasn’t school club info.)

“I was sitting next to a friend when the announcement went over the PA saying Pearl Harbor was bombed. He later that day joined the war and died… Another was the captain of the Arizona, he would check on the ship every day as it was being built. He was on it the day Pearl Harbor was bombed”

Was school news very seriously taken by the student body? Was it more popular than city news?

“A lot of the boys I knew joined up. It closed many of the frat houses because so many people signed up for the war at one time. I know some of the boys were drafted, I know more of them signed up because they felt obligated or bound to. Quite a few were draft announcements about the war were made on campus but, I don’t recall any propaganda posters or speeches going around campus. I wouldn’t have gone to them anyway if I had known about them.

Did many of the boys you knew sign up before or after much of the propaganda and homeland attacks started?

“Some before, more after, especially after Pearl Harbor and what not. Except for the Jewish fraternities, the Jewish fraternity kept saying that, ‘We didn’t do anything in the war’, when it came down to the fact that their people didn’t want to fight.”

Were many of the women you knew drawn in like the men?

“The women didn’t think much about the war propaganda because they were not being drafted. The Uncle Sam posters were classic signs, but I don’t recall seeing too many of them. I think the girls were reading the news papers, but I don’t think they were really into reading it often or in depth because there wasn’t much going on. There was a little thing in Vietnam and the Gulf.”


When you lived on your own in New York state, do you recall any advertisements that were interesting to you? Have you noticed any dramatic changes in the way that advertising is done in Time Square, for example?

“Well I lived in Ithaca, which is for the most part (and in comparison to New York City) a small city. There was one big department store, and I only went there a few times. Most of my big shopping was done in New York City. Time square had a lot of ads but, not as many as there are now. The content was not nearly pushy either. Central square was not as full of faces advertising products as it is now, nor was it as ‘risky’. I enjoyed looking at the advertisements when I was younger because I love clothes. But I got most of my information on clothes from Vogue magazine, Mademoiselle and Hoppers Bizarre advertisements.