'Something on My Own': Gertrude Berg and American Broadcasting, 1929-1956

摘要

Gertrude Edelstein Berg, whose public image became interchangeable with that of Molly Goldberg, the quintessential Jewish mother whom Berg played in radio and television, was known as the "First Lady of Teleyision" at the mid-point of the twentieth century. Yet few remember her today, thanks in part to the McCarthy era blacklist that tarnished her program, The Goldbergs, based on her family's own experiences as struggling immigrants living on New York's Lower East Side. Berg's extraordinary career as the creator, writer, producer and star of her own shows was reduced after her death in 1966, at the age of 65, to a collection of her papers at Syracuse University. Fortunately, Smith, an assistant professor at Mississippi State University, discovered this treasure throve, and has resurrected Berg in a succinct biography based on his dissertation which won the annual Blanchard prize for excellence from the American Journalism Historians Association.