Education’s Original “Public Radio Programs”: The Rocky Mountain Radio Council, 1937-1950

• In Event: The Origins of Educational Technology

Abstract

This presentation examines the shared origin of educational technology and public broadcasting in the U.S. Calling upon primary document work at the National Archives’ Office of Education and Committee for Interstate and Foreign Commerce collections, as well as the Rockefeller Archive Center, this presentation looks at the curricular, administrative, and political history of the Rocky Mountain Radio Council (RMRC), the first successful educational broadcasting network. A.G. Crane created the Council in 1936 as president of the University of Wyoming. Crane was an educational media reformer in the 1920s and early 1930s, and envisioned a multi-state consortium centered in Colorado and Wyoming in which widely separated populations would have access to the same educational curriculum. RMRC broadcasts were approached as experiments to unify distinct regions while improving “best practices” of educational broadcast practice.

While similar experiments in Chicago and at various universities had failed in the 1920s and early 1930s, the RMRC succeeded due to its creation of the first educational broadcasting administrative headquarters, which acted as a clearinghouse for recorded programming and as a center for radio teacher training. The RMRC applied Office of Education curricular standards to communications technology under supervision by Commissioner John Studebaker, Charles Siepmann of the BBC, quantitative research pioneer Paul Lazarsfeld at Columbia University, and with underwriting from the Rockefeller Foundation.

After 15 years of inconsistent utilization of educational technology, Crane’s initiative was the first to institutionalize administrative standards for educational media practice. The RMRC also acted as the first exposure for Edwin C. Johnson, then Governor of Colorado, to classroom extension services via radio. After becoming a Senator, Johnson headed the Committee for Interstate and Foreign Commerce, which oversaw the Federal Communications Committee (FCC). Persuaded by the educational possibilities the Rocky Mountain Radio Council had elaborated, Johnson was instrumental in advocating for a provision in the Sixth Report and Order of 1952 for protected noncommercial radio and television frequency assignments that later became the basis for the Public Broadcasting Act of 1967. By looking at the infrastructural, administrative, and regulatory history of RMRC initiatives, this presentation hopes to clarify: 1) the origin of public broadcasting practices in educational technology, 2) the influence of A.G. Crane and Edwin Johnson upon the eventual consolidation of educational technology and communications policy, and 3) how the RMRC first connected disconnected populations in the region into the first standardized curriculum.

Author

• Josh Shepperd, The Catholic University of America