Dubbed the “first lady of radio,” Mary Margaret McBride (1899-1976) was a welcome voice in millions of homes in the 1930s, ’40s, and ’50s, pulling in 6 to 8 million listeners daily.
McBride interviewed 30,000 guests, from Eleanor Roosevelt to the neighborhood plumber, and produced 15,000 shows. She was a radio pioneer, broadcasting some of those shows from her converted Catskills barn.
McBride first worked steadily in radio for WOR in New York City, starting in 1934. This daily women’s-advice show, with her persona as “Martha Deane,” a kind and witty grandmother figure with a Missouri drawl, aired daily until 1940.
She died at the age of 76 on April 7, 1976, at her home at West Shokan,in the town of Olive, Ulster County, NY.
Her story is told in Susan Ware’s biography, It’s One O’Clock and Here Is Mary Margaret McBride (2005).
Ware talks about this Catskills broadcast legend the latest episode of Kaatscast: the Catskills Podcast.
You can listen to the podcast here.
