Synopses & Reviews
Blending cultural, religious, and media history, Tona Hangen offers a richly detailed glimpse into the world of religious radio. She uses recordings, sermons, fan mail, and other sources to tell the stories of the determined broadcasters and devoted listeners who, together, transformed American radio evangelism from an on-air novelty in the 1920s into a profitable and wide-reaching industry by the 1950s.
Hangen traces the careers of three of the most successful Protestant radio evangelists--Paul Rader, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Charles Fuller--and examines the strategies they used to bring their messages to listeners across the nation. Initially shut out of network radio and free airtime, both of which were available only to mainstream Protestant and Catholic groups, evangelical broadcasters gained access to the airwaves with paid-time programming. By the mid-twentieth century millions of Americans regularly tuned into evangelical programming, making it one of the medium's most distinctive and durable genres. The voluntary contributions of these listeners helped bankroll religious radio's remarkable growth.
Revealing the entwined development of evangelical religion and modern mass media, Hangen demonstrates that the history of one is incomplete without the history of the other; both are essential to understanding American culture in the twentieth century.
Review
Redeeming the Dial is a clearly and engagingly written study covering an area that cries out for scholarship: the many vital ways that broadcasting has affected the practice of religion in America, and vice versa. Hangen's approach brings the material alive and situates it in the midst of current historical debates. Redeeming the Dial is an important work of revisionist historiography that should be eagerly read by media and cultural historians alike. (Michele Hilmes, University of Wisconsin-Madison)
Review
With deft use of the sources, Tona Hangen offers here a portrait of the pioneers of evangelical radio as well as the vast audiences that tuned in. Redeeming the Dial is religious history at its best: a strong narrative laced with anecdotes and perceptive analysis. (Randall Balmer, author of The Encyclopedia of Evangelicalism)
Synopsis
Hangen traces the careers of three of the most successful Protestant radio evangelists--Paul Rader, Aimee Semple McPherson, and Charles Fuller--and examines the strategies they used to bring their messages to listeners across the nation, transforming American radio evangelism from an on-air novelty in the 1920s into a profitable and wide-reaching industry by the 1950s.
Synopsis
Includes bibliographical references (p. [189]-207) and index.
About the Author
Tona J. Hangen is a historian who has taught at Brandeis University and Bentley College. She lives in Stow, Massachusetts.
Table of Contents
Broadcasting discord : religious radio before 1939 -- So I sow by radio : Paul Rader and the creation of a radio revival genre -- The live wire of Los Angeles : Aimee Semple McPherson on radio -- Pastors of the old-fashioned gospel : Charles Fuller, evangelist to the world -- We must not be muzzled : interreligious struggle for radio access in the 1940s -- Mainstreaming the good news : radio and postwar popular culture.