Records of "Clara, Lu 'n' Em"

The Records of Clara Lu ‘n’ Em fill 26 boxes and date between 1923 and 2014. Eight scrapbooks of clippings document the women’s lives and careers, and are especially revealing about the way the radio stations publicized the show and how sponsors pushed their products. The scrapbooks hold many examples of the press releases that NBC sent to newspapers across the country, and to current or potential affiliate radio stations and sponsors, as well as tearsheets from sponsors for newspaper or magazine ads (the best are the Super Suds ads which recreated the feeling of a serial).

Contracts, correspondence, photographs, and promotional materials and artifacts (a souvenir spoon from the Century of Progress, and a jigsaw puzzle of the girls eating lunch on the steps of the United States Capitol) add to the vivid picture of Clara, Lu ‘n’ Em’s radio life. Fortunately, a few of the transcription disks also survived; they have been digitized, making the leisurely drawls of the women and the archetypal "radio voice" of their announcer heard once again.

Scripts form the bulk of the collection. Helen King Mitchell ("Em")  was careful to date and save her copies of the radio show's scripts, which, over the course of nearly eight years (with the show airing as often as five days a week), filled a dozen card-file boxes. A highlight of the collection, the scripts are integral to understanding the charm (and the corniness) of the shows, as well as the creative energy of the three real-life women who wrote and performed them.