WEBVTT - Ruth Lyons: TV Pioneer 0:00:01.480 --> 0:00:07.720 Welcome to Stuff you should know, a production of iHeartRadio. 0:00:11.080 --> 0:00:14.120 Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, 0:00:14.200 --> 0:00:18.079 and this is stuff you should know. Hats off, tribute, 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:23.360 even white gloves off, tribute to a true unsung I 0:00:23.360 --> 0:00:26.560 would say, pioneer in a lot of ways, certainly sung 0:00:26.680 --> 0:00:29.760 in certain areas and certain age groups, but as far 0:00:29.760 --> 0:00:31.760 as history is concerned, I'm going to go ahead and 0:00:31.840 --> 0:00:36.040 say that Ruth Lyons is an unsung pioneer in the 0:00:36.080 --> 0:00:37.160 history of television. 0:00:37.680 --> 0:00:43.120 Agreed, And this is good a listener recommendation from I 0:00:43.159 --> 0:00:46.880 think I've been sitting on this one for a while. Yes, So, 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:49.879 for all I know, Nick Bauer gave up on the 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:51.120 show and won't even hear this. 0:00:52.240 --> 0:00:53.559 It's possible it happens. 0:00:55.440 --> 0:00:57.920 I also should mention that my dogs are over here 0:00:57.960 --> 0:01:01.560 today and they usually are put away, but they can't 0:01:01.560 --> 0:01:07.440 be because of work people, So they're laying down now 0:01:07.760 --> 0:01:08.800 and they're being quiet. 0:01:09.680 --> 0:01:13.560 Okay, but we'll see what happens. Hey, Momos appeared on 0:01:13.600 --> 0:01:16.560 the show at least once, so I can feel your pain. 0:01:16.640 --> 0:01:17.160 It's all right. 0:01:17.240 --> 0:01:19.840 I think we should have a policy moving forward that 0:01:19.920 --> 0:01:23.440 anytime Moe speaks in the background, Jerry just leaves that in. 0:01:24.600 --> 0:01:27.560 Okay, I'm fine with that as long as Yeah, I'm 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:29.440 fine with that, no qualifiers needed. 0:01:29.640 --> 0:01:31.840 It makes you like a real person like Ruth Lyons 0:01:32.040 --> 0:01:32.679 strove to be. 0:01:34.200 --> 0:01:38.640 Oh, I don't like that, then I strive to do 0:01:38.760 --> 0:01:41.120 the opposite and seem robottish and wouldn't. 0:01:42.040 --> 0:01:44.720 No, but I'm glad you introduced this as an unsung 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:47.120 hero story because I had never heard of Ruth Lyons. 0:01:47.160 --> 0:01:51.120 But as it turns out, Ruth Lyons was quite a pioneer, 0:01:51.160 --> 0:01:55.840 and in fact, I mean, unless somebody corrects us, I 0:01:55.880 --> 0:01:58.840 would be pretty I feel pretty good about saying that 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:03.440 Ruth Lyons invented the format of the TV talk. 0:02:03.280 --> 0:02:08.160 Show yeah, which really flies in the face of essentially 0:02:08.360 --> 0:02:12.280 everything you will find in research which credits Joe Franklin, 0:02:12.320 --> 0:02:16.480 who hosted The Joe Franklin Show, as not only being 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:21.680 the first daytime television host talk show host, but having 0:02:21.680 --> 0:02:24.760 also invented the format. Yeah, and his show is on 0:02:24.800 --> 0:02:29.320 from nineteen fifty one, get this till nineteen ninety three. Serious, 0:02:29.960 --> 0:02:33.880 I am dead serious. He recorded twenty eight thousand plus 0:02:33.919 --> 0:02:36.079 episodes and he never missed. 0:02:35.800 --> 0:02:37.840 A show, So no shaded Joe Franklin. 0:02:38.480 --> 0:02:41.079 No, not at all, not at all. But you will 0:02:41.080 --> 0:02:43.560 not find if you look up who invented the daytime 0:02:43.600 --> 0:02:47.320 talk show, it's Joe Franklin across the board. But we 0:02:47.440 --> 0:02:51.000 have clear evidence here that our hero of the story, 0:02:51.080 --> 0:02:55.040 Ruth Lyons, definitely invented the talk show at least two 0:02:55.120 --> 0:02:59.120 years before Joe Franklin. So yeah, let's get into this, 0:02:59.160 --> 0:03:02.280 shall we, Because even aside from that that, whether she 0:03:02.320 --> 0:03:05.680 invented it or not, she was clearly an early pioneer 0:03:05.680 --> 0:03:08.720 in daytime talk and TV in general. It was also 0:03:08.760 --> 0:03:10.040 a pretty interesting person. 0:03:10.720 --> 0:03:13.080 Yeah, Like everything I read about her, it was just 0:03:13.120 --> 0:03:15.720 like could she get any better? Like every time I 0:03:15.760 --> 0:03:18.000 read a new thing, it was like she was a 0:03:18.160 --> 0:03:21.919 super rad lady through and through. But she, like you said, 0:03:21.960 --> 0:03:26.079 she arrived at the beginnings of TV, because as we'll see, 0:03:26.200 --> 0:03:29.120 she started on radio and then transferred to TV, but 0:03:29.360 --> 0:03:31.680 it was, you know, there were no you know, she 0:03:31.760 --> 0:03:34.280 kind of invented the formula because there were no formulas 0:03:34.320 --> 0:03:38.080 to follow, and she was like, I mean, not only 0:03:38.120 --> 0:03:40.640 a pioneer and just sort of being the first to 0:03:40.680 --> 0:03:43.520 do things and certainly the first woman to do these things, 0:03:44.040 --> 0:03:46.640 but just all these great ideas like every time she 0:03:46.720 --> 0:03:50.280 had a new idea for something for the show, it 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:52.200 was just like a super cool idea. 0:03:53.080 --> 0:03:56.160 Yeah, for sure. And she not only was a TV pioneer, 0:03:56.920 --> 0:04:00.760 she was at the onset essentially of radio, So she 0:04:00.880 --> 0:04:04.760 was there for the proliferation of radio as a mass 0:04:04.760 --> 0:04:08.680 medium and the same for TV too, So just that 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:11.280 in and of itself is pretty remarkable. But yeah, the fact 0:04:11.280 --> 0:04:13.240 that she was doing this as a woman. And then 0:04:13.280 --> 0:04:16.679 also not like I'll go out there and host all 0:04:16.920 --> 0:04:19.240 male colleagues tell me what to do, like she was 0:04:19.279 --> 0:04:22.839 calling the shots, h and she did it by building 0:04:22.920 --> 0:04:30.400 up her professional career just by being reliable, trustworthy, charming, interesting, 0:04:30.480 --> 0:04:32.839 but also like this is kind of how it's going 0:04:32.920 --> 0:04:37.880 to be. Although I never saw anything so she was 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:43.480 described as brash here there, I never got the impression 0:04:43.520 --> 0:04:45.200 that she was one of those people who was just 0:04:45.640 --> 0:04:47.760 pushy and like this is the way it is, and 0:04:47.839 --> 0:04:51.960 never got that impression. And then similarly, she talks a lot. 0:04:52.080 --> 0:04:55.800 I read her well, skimmed her memoirs, highly readable, by 0:04:55.839 --> 0:05:00.480 the way, and she talks a lot about herself. It's 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:04.120 her memoir but she never quite crosses the line into 0:05:04.160 --> 0:05:07.839 like boasting, So it's really that's a tough like a 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:11.080 tough tightrope to walk, and she manages to do it. 0:05:11.120 --> 0:05:14.480 So yeah, she's just pretty great all across the board. 0:05:14.760 --> 0:05:17.120 Yeah, and I think brash is a word that was 0:05:17.240 --> 0:05:19.560 used and it's still used to describe women in the 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:23.360 workplace who you know, call their own shots and behave 0:05:23.480 --> 0:05:27.640 essentially like men might. Yeah. Yeah, take no mcguffins, take 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:29.440 no mcguffins. Oh man, why do you have to say 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:33.880 that word again? So Ruth was born Ruth Reeves in 0:05:33.920 --> 0:05:36.960 nineteen oh five and Cincinnata, and as you will see, 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:42.080 this is a very Cincinnati centric story, as along with 0:05:42.120 --> 0:05:44.400 some other markets in the area, but that was really 0:05:44.920 --> 0:05:48.159 her home. And as you will see, she was a 0:05:48.160 --> 0:05:52.120 big Reds fan. Yeah, even to the point of like 0:05:52.400 --> 0:05:54.479 getting people to stuff the ballot box for the Reds 0:05:54.480 --> 0:05:55.920 on the All Star team, which is pretty cool. 0:05:56.720 --> 0:06:00.240 Yeah. And we should also say one more thing, the 0:06:00.240 --> 0:06:04.000 pioneer thing. I noticed some things I certainly wouldn't call 0:06:04.080 --> 0:06:06.599 us pioneers in podcasting that people have been doing it 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:11.600 before us, but we were there at generally like the 0:06:12.440 --> 0:06:15.680 beginning of it kind of and certainly the spread and 0:06:15.760 --> 0:06:19.599 proliferation of it becoming a popular form of media. So 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:22.080 I kind of can commiserate here or there with some 0:06:22.240 --> 0:06:25.599 of the points throughout her career too. I thought that 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:28.640 was kind of neat. Oh yeah, yeah, I'll point them 0:06:28.640 --> 0:06:30.440 out as we go along. How about that? All right? 0:06:30.440 --> 0:06:33.760 So she was born in Cincinnati, She had a sister. 0:06:34.800 --> 0:06:37.840 Her parents were you know, you know, seemed like sort 0:06:37.880 --> 0:06:41.159 of middle class family. Her dad was a railroad clerk 0:06:41.200 --> 0:06:45.479 and her mother was a homemaker. Had a very close family. 0:06:46.080 --> 0:06:48.280 It seems like she was probably influenced some by her 0:06:48.440 --> 0:06:53.480 paternal grandmother, who was involved in the women's Christian Temperance Union. 0:06:54.000 --> 0:06:57.279 Because Ruth would never drink alcohol throughout her whole life. 0:06:58.240 --> 0:07:00.960 But even from a kid, she was, you know, she 0:07:01.040 --> 0:07:02.920 was like little Eddie Murphy. She was always putting on 0:07:02.960 --> 0:07:07.000 a show for the family. And if she like got 0:07:07.040 --> 0:07:09.360 on stage and did something and messed up, like, she 0:07:09.440 --> 0:07:11.120 wasn't the kind of kid to run off stage crying. 0:07:11.240 --> 0:07:13.200 She just kind of rolled with it. And that seems 0:07:13.200 --> 0:07:15.960 to be sort of a formative thing for her throughout 0:07:16.000 --> 0:07:16.480 her career. 0:07:17.640 --> 0:07:20.640 Yeah, And speaking of formative, her like how she was 0:07:20.720 --> 0:07:23.320 during her formative age kind of set the stage for 0:07:23.360 --> 0:07:26.720 the rest of her life where she was a feminist 0:07:27.280 --> 0:07:29.480 in many many ways, but at the same time, she 0:07:29.520 --> 0:07:33.840 was also totally comfortable with fulfilling traditional women's roles. What's 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:37.280 cool is they don't seem to have ever particularly contradicted 0:07:37.440 --> 0:07:38.160 each other in. 0:07:38.200 --> 0:07:43.080 Her Yeah, and it also seems like it certainly wasn't stick, 0:07:43.160 --> 0:07:45.480 but it seems like something that she was like, Hey, 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:50.920 I'm just like you. You know, she was an every 0:07:50.960 --> 0:07:55.680 woman and she even sort of poo pooed sometimes, like 0:07:56.080 --> 0:07:58.160 you know, the movie stars with their fur coats and 0:07:58.200 --> 0:08:01.680 like they're basically unrelatable and she I don't think she 0:08:01.840 --> 0:08:04.240 wanted to be relatable. I think she just was relatable. 0:08:04.360 --> 0:08:07.600 Yeah, I think that's well put. Man. So getting back 0:08:07.600 --> 0:08:10.840 to her bio, she started dating a guy named Johnny 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:15.160 Lyons who lived down the street. Knew the way, do 0:08:15.320 --> 0:08:16.600 you really is this the same guy? 0:08:17.760 --> 0:08:19.200 I knew him a long time ago, but when I 0:08:19.240 --> 0:08:21.200 read that, I was like, oh, yeah, Johnny Lyons, whatever 0:08:21.200 --> 0:08:22.000 happened to that dude. 0:08:22.480 --> 0:08:25.920 It's a good name, good solid name. He lived down 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.800 the street and they ended up getting married about eight 0:08:28.880 --> 0:08:32.880 years after high school, and as we'll see, it didn't 0:08:32.960 --> 0:08:36.160 last very long. But in the meantime, she went to 0:08:36.280 --> 0:08:42.400 the University of Cincinnati. I think the Bearcats go Bearcatscats, Bearcats, Bearcats, 0:08:42.440 --> 0:08:45.960 thank you. And she was just there for one year. 0:08:46.760 --> 0:08:49.000 She's made it quite a splash while she was there. 0:08:49.000 --> 0:08:51.720 The first year, she's the humor editor for the yearbook, 0:08:51.760 --> 0:08:54.480 and she wrote music for the school musical and I 0:08:54.520 --> 0:08:58.440 think she became a tri delt even she was the 0:08:58.440 --> 0:09:01.160 one who coined the phrase delta Delta delta, Can I 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:02.400 help you, help you? Help you? 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:03.920 I saw that coming a mile away. 0:09:05.120 --> 0:09:08.600 So but she stopped. She dropped out after the first year. 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.400 Her father became ill. He apparently lost a decent amount 0:09:12.440 --> 0:09:15.719 of money in the depression, and so her family was 0:09:15.760 --> 0:09:18.320 kind of hard up. And she's like, I'm really like, 0:09:18.520 --> 0:09:21.160 nothing I'm doing here is actually going to further my 0:09:21.280 --> 0:09:23.520 career down the road. I might as well drop out 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:26.520 and go find work and help support the family rather 0:09:26.559 --> 0:09:28.800 than being a drain on the family finances. 0:09:29.080 --> 0:09:31.920 Yeah, for sure. She was also a musician and a songwriter, 0:09:32.679 --> 0:09:34.880 something she did kind of throughout her career, even though 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:38.160 that was definitely like a side gig that like clearly 0:09:38.320 --> 0:09:41.480 something she loved doing. But when she was young, right 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:43.240 after she dropped out of school, she got a job 0:09:43.240 --> 0:09:46.719 playing sheet music at the Willis Music Company, which was 0:09:46.760 --> 0:09:50.520 downtown Cincinnati, and she kind of got hipped to the 0:09:50.520 --> 0:09:53.600 the local music scene, in the radio scene and did 0:09:53.679 --> 0:09:56.240 other side jobs along the way, obviously to make some money. 0:09:56.280 --> 0:09:59.360 But she was writing songs this whole time, and in 0:09:59.400 --> 0:10:02.040 fact wrote song that I wouldn't call it a hit, 0:10:02.520 --> 0:10:06.400 but her most popular song in nineteen forty six was 0:10:06.440 --> 0:10:08.560 called Let's Light the Christmas Tree. So she wrote a 0:10:09.040 --> 0:10:10.800 you know, probably in the area, as well as sort 0:10:10.840 --> 0:10:12.160 of a classic Christmas song. 0:10:12.880 --> 0:10:17.120 I g I mean, she took every thing in the kitchen, 0:10:17.160 --> 0:10:20.520 including the sink that's even remotely Christmas. Eve threw it 0:10:20.559 --> 0:10:24.040 at that one. There's bells that are peeling along with 0:10:24.040 --> 0:10:28.280 with a choir. There's children's parts. All of the lyrics 0:10:28.280 --> 0:10:32.720 are real schmaltzy, like Christmas ey stuff. It's a I mean, 0:10:32.760 --> 0:10:34.840 it's a Christmas song through and through. It's not great, 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:36.120 but it is a Christmas song. 0:10:37.920 --> 0:10:45.320 Josh's review, it's a Christmas song, yeah, period. So Ruth 0:10:45.400 --> 0:10:47.400 Reeves got on the radio for the first time in 0:10:47.480 --> 0:10:51.320 nineteen twenty five, just playing piano along with the singer. 0:10:52.080 --> 0:10:55.120 But then in nineteen twenty nine, Fate came a knocking 0:10:55.520 --> 0:11:01.719 and she got a full time gig at WKRC in Cincinnati, Cincinnati, 0:11:02.040 --> 0:11:05.800 and she was assistant to the musical director there, and 0:11:05.840 --> 0:11:09.960 she was basically, you know, she organized the music, she 0:11:10.160 --> 0:11:13.679 played piano whenever they needed someone live in studio. And 0:11:13.720 --> 0:11:17.520 then another faithful thing would happen when the host of 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.400 a show called The Woman's Hour got sick, she filled 0:11:20.440 --> 0:11:23.400 in and started ad libbing kind of right away, kind 0:11:23.400 --> 0:11:27.680 of Robin Williams style, a Good Morning Vietnam. She threw 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:30.680 the script out the window, did her own thing, and 0:11:30.800 --> 0:11:33.400 afterward got called into the manager's office where it is 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:35.920 like something out of a movie. She thought she was 0:11:35.960 --> 0:11:38.120 going to get in trouble and they were like, yeah, 0:11:38.200 --> 0:11:38.760 a hit. 0:11:40.440 --> 0:11:44.920 That's right. And sadly so as apparently this woman she 0:11:45.000 --> 0:11:47.880 replaced her filled in for, was out for one day 0:11:48.600 --> 0:11:50.560 and she came back in and lost her job the 0:11:50.600 --> 0:11:54.040 next day because Ruth had made such a splash. So 0:11:54.080 --> 0:11:59.199 she inadvertently took this poor woman's job and went on 0:11:59.320 --> 0:12:03.040 to not only host Woman's Hour, she added another one 0:12:03.200 --> 0:12:06.640 called Open House, and then another one, so she's hosting 0:12:06.720 --> 0:12:10.200 three different radio programs. Third one's called The Woman's View 0:12:10.280 --> 0:12:13.360 on the news, and she was not only hosting those, 0:12:13.400 --> 0:12:17.400 she was also still working with the musical director, and 0:12:18.320 --> 0:12:23.679 very like quickly made a name for herself. And again 0:12:23.760 --> 0:12:26.720 this is where Johnny Lyons comes back in and exits 0:12:26.760 --> 0:12:30.800 almost as quickly, because they got married in nineteen thirty two, 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:35.480 and shortly after that, Johnny was transferred to Cleveland, and 0:12:35.559 --> 0:12:38.439 Ruth's like, I'm just starting my career here and it's 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:40.880 going really well. I'm gonna stay in Cincinnati. Let's try 0:12:40.880 --> 0:12:44.439 this long distance. And anyone who's familiar with Ohio geography, 0:12:44.920 --> 0:12:48.079 the drive from Cincinnati to Cleveland is not a short drive. 0:12:48.600 --> 0:12:51.079 It's just long enough to be like a long drive, 0:12:51.200 --> 0:12:54.720 you know, So I can imagine in the nineteen thirties 0:12:54.760 --> 0:12:58.079 it was even harder, and it said to say it 0:12:58.120 --> 0:13:00.880 didn't quite work out, and they ended up staying married 0:13:00.960 --> 0:13:04.079 for about seven years, but I have the distinct impression 0:13:04.120 --> 0:13:08.679 that they were basically consciously uncoupled long before then. 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:13.319 Yeah, it seems like it. Very sadly, she kept that name. Obviously, 0:13:13.400 --> 0:13:16.559 Ruth Lyons was the name she started her radio career with, 0:13:17.240 --> 0:13:19.720 so I think she kept it for name recognition from 0:13:19.720 --> 0:13:23.000 that point forward, even after getting remarried, as we'll see later. 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:25.959 And she didn't really talk about that first marriage a lot. 0:13:26.480 --> 0:13:31.280 It's not at her memoir. She did say in you know, 0:13:31.280 --> 0:13:32.920 when she was talking about her second marriage, I think 0:13:32.920 --> 0:13:36.040 in interviews later on, that she didn't think she would 0:13:36.040 --> 0:13:38.800 ever marry because she thought men would hate her success. 0:13:39.480 --> 0:13:41.280 So I don't know if that had anything to do 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:43.240 with their marriage or if it was just the long 0:13:43.240 --> 0:13:46.760 distance thing, but at any rate, they got divorced, and 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.000 maybe that is a decent time for a break. 0:13:51.679 --> 0:13:53.240 I'd say Ruth Lyons would approve. 0:13:53.480 --> 0:13:55.280 All right, we'll be right back with more on Ruth 0:13:55.360 --> 0:14:12.760 Lyons learn. 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:21.040 And stuff with Joshua John stuff fu shin up. Okay, Chuck, 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:24.960 So we're back. We held the seance in the break, 0:14:25.160 --> 0:14:27.480 and maybe we did verify that. Ruth Lyons thought it 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:29.320 was a great time for us to take a break. 0:14:29.480 --> 0:14:32.160 So that was great. Yeah, And I said that she 0:14:32.280 --> 0:14:35.360 had made a name for herself pretty quickly on Cincinnati 0:14:35.440 --> 0:14:38.560 radio and one of the things that came along that 0:14:38.600 --> 0:14:41.800 really helps her with that, which I guess if you 0:14:41.800 --> 0:14:44.240 can ever be helped by a flood, she was. There 0:14:44.320 --> 0:14:47.080 was a huge flood in nineteen thirty seven. I saw 0:14:47.120 --> 0:14:49.400 that it was described as up to the street lights, 0:14:49.600 --> 0:14:52.520 which is a pretty decent sized flood, and it was 0:14:52.600 --> 0:14:56.880 a catastrophe for Cincinnati. And at the time, again, radio 0:14:56.960 --> 0:14:59.400 was like really just kind of starting out, and this 0:14:59.440 --> 0:15:01.360 is one of the ways that it proved itself as 0:15:01.840 --> 0:15:05.280 a medium where you could help people thoroughly. She stayed 0:15:05.320 --> 0:15:11.720 on the air essentially for forty eight hours, reading bulletins 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:14.960 I think from the local authorities on where to go 0:15:15.080 --> 0:15:17.280 for help, or how to donate to the Red Cross, 0:15:17.360 --> 0:15:19.600 or where to go get sandbags, that kind of stuff. 0:15:20.120 --> 0:15:24.040 And just that right there kind of showed Cincinnati that 0:15:24.080 --> 0:15:26.720 she was a trustworthy voice to be listened to. 0:15:27.320 --> 0:15:28.720 Yeah, And I don't know if it was that or 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:31.880 just her overall butt kicking at the job, but she 0:15:32.640 --> 0:15:35.920 got a promotion. She got promoted to program director. This 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:39.400 is a woman in the nineteen thirty so she's already 0:15:39.560 --> 0:15:42.000 sort of you know, breaking new ground and breaking glass 0:15:42.040 --> 0:15:43.280 ceilings all over the place. 0:15:43.720 --> 0:15:45.840 Yeah, just to point out, she had by this time, 0:15:45.920 --> 0:15:50.800 Venus Fly Traps job, Johnny Fever's job, and Andy's job 0:15:50.840 --> 0:15:51.280 as well. 0:15:52.000 --> 0:15:57.200 That's right, So she was she didn't have Lennie Anderson's job. 0:15:57.480 --> 0:16:01.000 That's the key there, right, she Hadnie Anderson in about 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.200 seventeen other people working for her. 0:16:03.440 --> 0:16:05.640 That's right. One of the other great things she did 0:16:05.840 --> 0:16:08.960 was worked with kids. She started a Christmas song. It 0:16:09.000 --> 0:16:10.880 was kind of like a sort of an early version 0:16:10.920 --> 0:16:13.840 of Toys for Tots. I was in nineteen thirty nine. 0:16:14.000 --> 0:16:17.000 She put on a show at Cincinnati Children's Hospital and 0:16:17.160 --> 0:16:19.960 was like, these kids need more than this, and so 0:16:20.000 --> 0:16:22.440 she found out what was called the Christmas Fund and 0:16:22.880 --> 0:16:25.480 raised about a thousand bucks from listeners in that first year. 0:16:25.920 --> 0:16:28.080 And that is a fun that is still going strong 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.440 today long after she has passed, and I think they 0:16:32.480 --> 0:16:34.720 do it every year on her birthday. They started up 0:16:34.720 --> 0:16:37.080 on October fourth, Yeah. 0:16:36.880 --> 0:16:38.680 And that was something she had a talent for, was 0:16:38.760 --> 0:16:41.400 getting people that donate money to causes that she felt 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:44.840 were important. You said they raised one thousand dollars that 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:47.520 first year in nineteen thirty nine. Four years later they 0:16:47.560 --> 0:16:50.240 were up to raising fifty four thousand dollars and this 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:53.720 is nineteen forty's money, so it was pretty substantial to help. 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:57.440 They spread out very quickly after that to include children's 0:16:57.440 --> 0:17:00.680 homes and other hospitals and other area is that the 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:04.080 broadcast reached, like as far as I think Indianapolis. So 0:17:04.920 --> 0:17:07.240 it was a big deal right off of the bat. 0:17:07.920 --> 0:17:11.159 And she so, I think nineteen forty two. She's been 0:17:11.200 --> 0:17:14.720 doing this for about ten years, a little less, no, 0:17:14.800 --> 0:17:17.199 about ten years, and she made a move to a 0:17:17.240 --> 0:17:22.080 different radio station. They offered the plum can't turn it 0:17:22.160 --> 0:17:25.560 down deal of an extra ten dollars a week over 0:17:25.640 --> 0:17:28.560 what she was making at her original station, and she 0:17:28.680 --> 0:17:30.240 said sold. Yeah. 0:17:30.280 --> 0:17:32.879 I think this had more to do with getting out 0:17:32.920 --> 0:17:38.479 to more voices because Crossley Broadcasting was broadcast in several 0:17:38.480 --> 0:17:42.280 more markets than just local Cincinnati radio. So the station 0:17:43.040 --> 0:17:47.160 definitely like publicized on her notoriety at that point. And 0:17:47.280 --> 0:17:50.960 they said, let's have a contest where we have listeners 0:17:51.000 --> 0:17:54.359 right in to name her new show. The name wasn't great. 0:17:54.400 --> 0:17:58.040 They came back the winning one was a Petticoat party line. 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:01.880 She added more show that because that's what Ruth Lyons does. 0:18:01.920 --> 0:18:05.680 She added a morning show called the WLW Consumers Foundation, 0:18:06.240 --> 0:18:09.000 And this one was like gangbusters with the company because 0:18:09.040 --> 0:18:12.080 it was great for advertisers and that they had a 0:18:12.119 --> 0:18:15.840 couple of hundred women test out products and then come 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.160 back on the air and report what they found out. 0:18:18.640 --> 0:18:22.840 So advertisers always loved her. They kind of gussied it up. 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.800 She added music and then games and eventually changed that 0:18:25.960 --> 0:18:29.520 terrible name to Morning Mattinee, much much better name, and 0:18:29.640 --> 0:18:33.160 also had a game show called Collect Calls from Lowenthal's, 0:18:33.160 --> 0:18:34.320 which was a first. 0:18:34.080 --> 0:18:37.040 Store, right, and if you kind of go back and 0:18:37.080 --> 0:18:40.400 look at the Morning Matinee in addition to you know, 0:18:40.880 --> 0:18:43.800 having women test products and then come in and say like, well, 0:18:43.840 --> 0:18:46.800 this is what I thought of this, adding music and 0:18:46.880 --> 0:18:49.200 games that kind of stuff, like all of a sudden, 0:18:49.240 --> 0:18:52.400 it's starting to take like a morning show format. Yeah, 0:18:52.440 --> 0:18:54.600 for sure, you can start to see the contours of 0:18:54.640 --> 0:18:57.560 it just kind of coming into view here or there. 0:18:58.960 --> 0:19:02.320 And she one of the things she did was she 0:19:02.880 --> 0:19:05.520 we'll talk about this a little more later, but she 0:19:05.720 --> 0:19:11.440 was really good at just understanding that you need ad 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:16.960 revenue to survive and that you're going to make more 0:19:16.960 --> 0:19:22.200 ad revenue and also keep your viewership if you are 0:19:22.400 --> 0:19:25.399 forthright and honest about your advertisers. And so one of 0:19:25.440 --> 0:19:27.920 the things she did was she would turn down. She 0:19:28.480 --> 0:19:31.520 negotiated the ability to say Nope, not them, I don't 0:19:31.520 --> 0:19:35.560 believe in their product, because, like her ads were all endorsement. 0:19:36.119 --> 0:19:40.440 So for her as a very ethical person. She didn't 0:19:40.800 --> 0:19:45.040 do any endorsements that she didn't personally believe in, which 0:19:45.080 --> 0:19:48.200 was a big deal, especially at the time, and also 0:19:48.760 --> 0:19:52.119 led her to tons of disagreements and headbutting with the 0:19:52.160 --> 0:19:56.400 ad sales department, but she would typically win because that's 0:19:56.400 --> 0:19:59.679 how powerful she had become again as a woman in 0:19:59.720 --> 0:20:01.440 broad casting it in the forties. 0:20:01.720 --> 0:20:05.000 Yeah, absolutely, she, you know, I mentioned earlier, she got 0:20:05.000 --> 0:20:07.800 married again. She married a guy named Herman Newman this 0:20:07.840 --> 0:20:11.639 time who was a semantics professor, and he was a 0:20:11.680 --> 0:20:15.720 big liberal guy, progressive guy, which meant that he didn't 0:20:15.720 --> 0:20:17.680 mind her having a lot of career success. He was 0:20:17.800 --> 0:20:21.679 very supportive of her and which was awesome and I 0:20:21.720 --> 0:20:24.200 think aligned with her political values as well as we'll see, 0:20:24.320 --> 0:20:25.800 you know, with some of the things that she did. 0:20:26.840 --> 0:20:31.480 They had one kid in nineteen forty four. It was 0:20:31.520 --> 0:20:33.960 a little bit of an unusual situation and that they 0:20:34.119 --> 0:20:37.600 announced the birth of young Candace, who they called Candy. 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:43.320 Later on people found out that she very sadly suffered 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.360 a still birth at six months and adopted an orphan newborn. 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.359 At the time that she had lost her her own baby, 0:20:51.480 --> 0:20:54.840 So she didn't, you know, she didn't cover it over 0:20:54.880 --> 0:20:57.280 or anything, but she didn't come right out and say it. 0:20:57.320 --> 0:21:00.280 But everyone knew the timeline of her pregnancy, so you know, 0:21:01.200 --> 0:21:03.040 you could probably figure it out if you were paying 0:21:03.080 --> 0:21:06.120 attention right right. 0:21:06.920 --> 0:21:10.919 So, Yes, and Kandy became their beloved child like like 0:21:11.040 --> 0:21:14.800 she was just that. Her parents absolutely adored her, and 0:21:14.840 --> 0:21:16.760 she would go on to kind of make appearances here 0:21:16.800 --> 0:21:19.320 or there on the radio show and then later on 0:21:19.359 --> 0:21:21.440 the TV show. And I guess she made her first 0:21:21.480 --> 0:21:27.160 appearance at six weeks old on the MICYK for Morning Mattinee. Yeah, 0:21:27.280 --> 0:21:31.600 her quote was you. So she came up with another program, 0:21:31.720 --> 0:21:34.640 Ruth did. She said, Hey, guys, I got a great idea. 0:21:35.359 --> 0:21:37.200 There is a there are a lot of women out 0:21:37.200 --> 0:21:40.119 there who haven't and may never have the chance to 0:21:40.119 --> 0:21:43.760 have a really fancy luncheon at a nice hotel downtown. 0:21:44.240 --> 0:21:47.000 So we're not only going to give them that opportunity, 0:21:47.359 --> 0:21:50.399 we're going to make a show out of it. And 0:21:50.440 --> 0:21:52.680 she called this the fifty Club because there was room 0:21:52.760 --> 0:21:55.679 for fifty paying customers. You paid a dollar each was 0:21:55.720 --> 0:21:59.119 about eighteen dollars to day to have a smashing lunch 0:21:59.600 --> 0:22:05.200 at the Gibson Hotel and after lunch you were treated 0:22:05.240 --> 0:22:08.480 to her radio show, you were part of the studio audience, 0:22:08.480 --> 0:22:11.520 and it was a smash hit right out of the gate. 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:13.840 They ended up selling tickets to the thing. They would 0:22:13.880 --> 0:22:16.400 sell them in three and four year chunks at a time. 0:22:17.000 --> 0:22:18.919 Yeah, and so big that they had to double the 0:22:18.960 --> 0:22:21.359 audience and get a new venue. And so that's why 0:22:21.520 --> 0:22:23.639 her show ended up being called the fifty to fifty Club. 0:22:24.560 --> 0:22:27.159 Pretty smart to keep that fifty in there instead of 0:22:27.160 --> 0:22:30.000 calling it the one hundred club or the seven or 0:22:30.040 --> 0:22:30.359 the club. 0:22:30.920 --> 0:22:33.640