Ed Jackson "Book of Radio Personalities" Scrapbook
name: label: Creator
content: Jackson, H. Edwin, 1907-1989
label: Names
content: Mills Brothers.
label: Names
content: Allen, Gracie
label: Names
content: Ameche, Don
label: Names
content: Astaire, Fred
label: Names
content: Benny, Jack, 1894-1974
label: Names
content: Bergen, Edgar
label: Names
content: Brice, Fanny
label: Names
content: Burns, George, 1896-
label: Names
content: Cantor, Eddie, 1892-1964
label: Names
content: Crosby, Bing, 1904-1977
label: Names
content: Durante, Jimmy
label: Names
content: Durbin, Deanna
label: Names
content: Eddy, Nelson, 1901-1967
label: Names
content: Froman, Jane, 1907-1980
label: Names
content: Jolson, Al, d. 1950
label: Names
content: Lillie, Beatrice
label: Names
content: Livingston, Mary
label: Names
content: Meredith, Burgess, 1907-1997
label: Names
content: Nelson, Ozzie
label: Names
content: Oakie, Jack, 1903-1978
label: Names
content: Skinner, Cornelia Otis, 1901-
label: Donor
content: Smith, Annette
label: Names
content: Vallée, Rudy, 1901-1986
label: Names
content: Whiteman, Paul, 1890-1967
label: Names
content: Woollcott, Alexander, 1887-1943
label: Names
content: Wynn, Ed, 1886-1966
topic: label: Topic
content: Radio comedies
label: Topic
content: Celebrities -- 1930-1940
label: Topic
content: Radio programs
label: Topic
content: Radio -- 1930-1940
acqinfo: label: Provenance
content: Donated to the National Museum of American History, Archives Center by Annette L. Smith (H. Edwin Jackson's daughter) in June, 2004.
label: Provenance
content: Donated to the Archives Center by Edwin Jackson's daughter, Ms. Annette Smith.
creator: label: Creator
content: Jackson, H. Edwin, 1907-1989
abstract: label: Summary
content: H. Edwin Jackson created this scrapbook of radio stars while living in Chicago, Illinois during the Great Depression.
bioghist: label: Biographical / Historical
content: H. Edwin Jackson (1907-1989) was born in Union City, Indiana, the youngest of three children.  Jackson's interest in entertainment personalities began early.  His father was engaged in real estate and through a land swap acquired The Star Theater in Union City, one of the town's three theaters.  The Star was a mid-size theater with a screen and stage.  The Jacksons ran The Star as a family business.  Jackson was the assistant projectionist to his older sister Mary Elizabeth and he and his father were the janitors.  The Star showed silent movies starring such personalities as William S. Hart, Douglas Fairbanks, Sr., Charlie Chaplin, and Wallace Reid.  During the influenza epidemic of the teens the theater closed.  The family eventually sold The Star, and Jackson went to work as an assistant projectionist at The Grand, Union City's largest and most modern movie house.

When Jackson graduated from high school, the family moved to Chicago, Illinois.  The Jackson family's first radio was "The Freshman" and the family eventually owned an Atwater Kent.  Jackson became an avid radio fan listening to local Chicago stations WKYW, WENR, and WBBM as well as the national radio networks.  Some of Jackson's favorite shows were The Shadow, Amos n' Andy and the Lux Radio Theater.  Jackson was laid off from his job in 1933 and spent a great deal of his time listening to radio.  His mother gave him money to purchase materials to make a scrapbook of radio and entertainment personalities.  He began his book in January 1933, entitling it "Ed Jackson's Book of Radio Personalities."  Jackson wrote to many of the personalities he featured in his scrapbook asking for autographed photographs which he put into the book along with clipped photographs and other items of interest from magazines and newspapers, radio show ticket stubs, and programs.  Jackson included comics, singers, commentators (both news and social), and stars of popular radio programs.  He revised/repaired the book in January, 1982 but Jackson did not detail his revisions.

Jackson was employed by the Lindberg Steel Treating Co. in Melrose Park, Illinois, for thirty years.  He married Louise LaJeunesse in 1935 and had two children.  Louise died in 1947, and Jackson married Eugenia McDougald in 1951.  At the time of his death in December 1989 he was living in Walden, New York.

Sources

Oral History by H. Edwin Jackson, Archives Center Control File

Memorial Obituary for Edwin Jackson, The Newburgh News, December 14, 1989.

Bello, Paul.  "Local scrapbook to be displayed at the Smithsonian".  Times Community Papers, May 17, 2006.

E-mail message from Annette Smith to Cathy Keen, June 2, 2009.
physdesc: label: Extent
content: 1 Cubic foot (1 box )
unitdate: label: Date
content: 1933-1941.
container: label: Container
content: Box 1
dataSource: label: Archival Repository
content: Archives Center, National Museum of American History
identifier: label: Identifier
content: NMAH.AC.0861
objectType: label: Type
content: Collection descriptions
label: Type
content: Archival materials
label: Type
content: Photographs
label: Type
content: Clippings
label: Type
content: Publicity photographs
label: Type
content: Scrapbooks
label: Type
content: Signatures (names)
arrangement: label: Arrangement
content: Collection is arranged into one series.
processinfo: label: Processing Information
content: Processed by Franklin A. Robinson, Jr., archivist, August 2004; supervised by Vanessa Broussard Simmons, archivist.  Finding aid revised September 2009.
genre_format: label: Genre/Form
content: Photographs -- Black-and-white photoprints -- Silver gelatin -- 1930-1950
label: Genre/Form
content: Clippings -- 1930-1950
label: Genre/Form
content: Publicity photographs
label: Genre/Form
content: Scrapbooks -- 20th century
label: Genre/Form
content: Signatures (names)
scopecontent: label: Scope and Contents
content: One homemade scrapbook created and compiled by H. Edwin Jackson. The book contains photographs, some autographed, news clippings, and commercially printed reproductions of photographs of numerous radio and entertainment personalities from 1933 forward. The arrangement of the book and its artwork was the creation of Jackson. Many pages have photographs and/or news items of additional personalities associated with the featured personality.

Subjects include: The Mills Brothers, Ruth Etting, Fred Allen with Portland Hoffa and Jack Smart, Lanny Ross, Phil Baker, Ireene [?] Wicker, The Pickens Sisters, Raymond, Knight, Clara (Louise Starkey), Lu (Isobel Carothers) n' Em (Helen King), Phil Harris and Leah Ray, Vera Van, George Burns and Gracie Allen, Gladys Swarthout, Jeanie Lang, Myrt and Marge, Helen Jepson, Jack Benny and Mary Livingston, Deanna Durbin, Helen Morgan, Jimmy Durante, Alexander Woolcott, The Boswell Sisters, Edwin C. Hill, Cornelia Otis Skinner, Paul Whiteman, Jessica Dragonette, Dave Rubinoff, Little Jackie Heller, Joe Penner, Mildred Bailey, Olga Albani, Vivienne Segal, Ed Wynn, Beatrice Lillie, Burgess Meredith, Dorothy Page, Bing Crosby, Rosa Ponselle, Stoopnagle and Budd, Grace Moore, Frank Crumit and Julia Sanderson, Frances Langford, Conrad Thibault, Ozzie Nelson and Harriet Hilliard, Bobby Breen, Jack Pearl, The Big Show, Olsen (Ole Olsen) and Johnson (Chick Johnson), Ramona, Rudy Vallee, The Easy Aces, Annette Hanshaw, Ben Bernie, Alice Faye, Charles Winninger, Ray Perkins, Eddie Cantor, Irene Rich, The Weiner Minstrels, Frank Parker, Jane Froman, Walter O'Keefe, James Melton, Al Jolson, Donald Novis, Morton Downey, The First Nighter (Charles P. Hughes), Lawrence Tibbett, Fred Astaire, Abe Lyman, Ethel Shutta, Fanny Brice, Joe Cook, Ken Murray, Jack Oakie, Tony Wans, Fred Waring's Pennsylvanians, Bob Burns, Don Ameche, Nelson Eddy, Ted Bergman, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy.
relatedmaterial: label: Related Materials
content: Materials in the Archives Center

George H. Clark Collection Radioana Collection, 1880-1950 (NMAH.AC.0055)

Warshaw Collection of Business Americana: Radio, Motion Pictures, 1896-1963 (NMAH.AC.0060)

National Bureau of Standards Radio Collection, 1917-1933 (NMAH.AC.0217)

Jean Clairmook Radio Scrapbook, 1930-1932 (NMAH.AC.0674)