| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.1

You have not been recognized as a subscriber to JAH online. About 171 words from this article are provided below; about 312 words remain.

If you are a individual member of the Organization of American Historians, you may:: • login here if you have already registered for online access.; • Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.
• Set up your online account for the first time.
If you are not a member of the Organization of American Historians, you can:: • Join the OAH and receive many member benefits including print and electronic issues of the Journal of American History.
• Purchase a research pass to gain two-hour access to the entire History Cooperative web site. You will have full access to current issues of the Journal of American History (86.1-present). Note: the Research Pass does not provide access to JSTOR's holdings of the Journal of American History.
Instititutions can:: • Subscribe to this journal and receive print and electronic issues.
• Activate your existing subscription so that we recognize your IP number ranges.

| Book Review | The Journal of American History, 92.1 | The History Cooperative

Book Review

Radio Active: Advertising and Consumer Activism, 1935–1947. By Kathy M. Newman. (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. xiv, 237 pp. Cloth, $55.00, ISBN 0-520-22372-1. Paper, $21.95, ISBN 0-520-23590-8.)

In her incisive return to network radio's golden age, Kathy M. Newman takes on the conventional wisdom that radio listeners in the period of old-time radio were passive and accepting tuners-in to what networks and stations offered. On the contrary, argues Newman (an associate professor of English at Carnegie Mellon University), at least some listeners were active about making their often critical anticommercial reactions known to radio's powers-that-be. Based on her American studies dissertation at Yale University, Newman's book here describes aspects of a rising intellectual consumer movement, one largely dominated by women, who made eighty-five percent of all consumer purchases in this period. Sometimes groups of women were gathered by the broadcasters for listening or in research panels, but often group listening led to concerted action (on occasion, boycotts)—or at least complaints about advertising messages on the air.

. . .

There are about 312 more words in this article. Please log in (or, if you are not yet an authorized user, please go to the User Setup page) to gain full access rights. Or if you're already logged in register your subscription.