Mary Margaret McBride

Known as "The First Lady of Radio," Mary Margaret McBride touched the lives of millions through her on-air skills and storytelling capabilities.

Image retrieved from Historic Missourians.

Mary Margaret McBride was born in Paris, Missouri on November 16, 1899 as the eldest of five children to Elizabeth Craig and Thomas Walker McBride. She began to attend public school in her hometown until 1910 when she switched to preparatory school because her great-aunt Albina offered to pay for it. When McBride told Albina that she wanted to be a writer, she stopped paying for the tuition.

In order to pay for school, she began writing for a local newspaper called "Paris Mercury" where she gained experience covering a wide variety of events. After years writing for the paper, she enrolled at the University of Missouri where she received a journalism degree in 1918.

Some of McBride's first work involved reporting for the Mexico Ledger in Mexico, Missouri, reporting for the Cleveland Press in Washington, D.C., and being a publicist with the Interfaith Council in New York City, New York. After working with numerous publications she decided to try freelance work and wrote articles for the Saturday Evening Post, Cosmopolitan, and wrote numerous books under pseudonyms as well as her own name.

Although McBride enjoyed writing, she decided to audition at radio station WOR for a woman's program in 1934, the moment that jumpstarted her career. She was hired to portray a fictional grandmother with a large family by the name of Martha Deane. McBride was required to memorize all the details of her family and by the third week of trying to memorize everyone's names, she grew incredibly frustrated and gave up trying. On the radio show, she confessed who she really was to the listeners, explaining that all she wanted to do was be a reporter and tell the listeners about the people she meets and the places she goes. Although this sounds like a career-ending moment for McBride, the listeners loved her authenticity and continued to listen to her for years to come.

McBride used her journalism background to tell unscripted stories on air. Her candidness was what drew people in, making them want to hear more of what she had to say. The radio show accumulated six to eight million listeners on a daily basis, making this the peak of her career. McBride had the opportunity to interview many well-known public figures, such as Eleanor Roosevelt, Omar Nelson Bradley, Pearl Buck, Bob Hope, and she was even referenced in an episode of "I Love Lucy" entitled, "The Million Dollar Idea."Another common segment on her radio shows was reading letters sent from her listeners.

McBride had the privilege of celebrating her tenth anniversary on air in Madison Square Garden in NYC with 18,000 people, both women and men, in attendance, with millions more listening at home. During her 20th anniversary, she decided to retire from network radio, but still continued to do broadcast and write books from her living room in the Catskills Mountains until she passed away in 1976.


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Mary Margaret McBride