We use Optical Character Recognition (OCR) during our scanning and processing workflow to make the content of each page searchable. You can view the automatically generated text below as well as copy and paste individual pieces of text to quote in your own work.
Text recognition is never 100% accurate. Many parts of the scanned page may not be reflected in the OCR text output, including: images, page layout, certain fonts or handwriting.
Long one of the biggest names in broadcasting. Major Bowes, witfi
THREE years ago last spring I varied my coverage of the New York network studios by dropping in at IVHN — one of the two dozen small stations that serve the metropolitan area. There was a new program — if not exactly a new idea — that was catching on like wildfire. Even far beyond the range of the lowpowered station on Times Square, the fame of Major Edward Bowes and his amateurs was rapidly spreading, and I was anxious to see firsthand just what was causing the fuss and ado.
It was a hot night and the studio — a small, low-ceilinged chamber — was jammed tighter than a New York subway car during the evening rush hour. The room was filled with sixty aspirants to the honors that went with surviving the gong. There were no advance provisions for visitors, and a few favored guests had to watch the proceedings from the tiny cubicle reserved for the control man. But they forgot the discomfort when they witnessed the local air shov^ that was the forerunner to the stellar network series that soon followed, and is still holding tremendous popularity.
On a recent Thursday evening I dropped in at the old Hammerstein Theatre, now renamed Co lumbia, Playhouse No. 3. It is eight blocks north of the Loew's State Theatre Building, where the amateur hour was born in humble surroundings. The marquee makes its own mazda contribution to the Great White Way by proclaiming that Major Edward Bowes and His Original Amateur Hour are featured within. Lucky ticketholders file in, well before program time, while huge crowds are turned away from the boxoffice in keen disappointment, upon discovering
Bv SAMUEL KAUFMAi