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Emerson
News
Saying Goodbye to
"Emerson East"
By
Donna L. Halper
5/2/03
When
I was first hired by Emerson in 1989, 128-130
Beacon was home to what was then called "Mass
Comm"--the department of Mass Communication;
Professor David Gordon was the chair. I
immediately fell in love with the
location--overlooking the Esplanade and the
Charles River, on a street with stately homes
from the Victorian era.
Another plus for
me was that Mass Comm was in close proximity to
the Emerson College library (which back then was
a few doors down at 150 Beacon). I loved walking
into those venerable old buildings, with their
hand-carved wood moldings, spiral staircases,
and marble fireplaces; it was like stepping back
in time.
As a media historian, I could
imagine what it must have been like for Emerson
students in the early 1930s, as the college
expanded from a school devoted largely to the
teaching of speech and theater arts (its
original name had been the Emerson College of
Oratory) to a college with courses in
broadcasting and journalism.
Emerson
had at one time been located at 30 Huntington
Avenue. Now, it was acquiring new buildings in
the Back Bay: the first classes in 130 Beacon
were held in late September of 1933; in April of
1934, the property at 128 Beacon was purchased
(it was assessed at $65,000--one can only
imagine what the same building sells for these
days...). The college publication was the
Emerson College News, and it announced plans for
even more expansion. Despite the fact that the
Great Depression was still going on, Emerson was
doing well.
Before the course was
eliminated when the various departments were
re-structured, I used to teach "History of
Broadcasting," and 128-130 Beacon was the
perfect place to teach it, since that was where
the first broadcasting courses were offered, and
where the first attempts at a campus radio
station were made.
In February of 1932,
before Emerson had officially taken over 130
Beacon, Arthur Edes agreed to teach a summer
course in broadcasting. Edes was a successful
and experienced radio announcer, having first
worked at WBZ before moving to the Edison
Electric Illuminating Company's station, WEEI
(whose studios and operation would move from 39
Boylston to what is today 180 Tremont). In the
summer of 1932, Edes taught "Radio Address: The
Techniques of Broadcasting," the first such
course ever offered at Emerson.
There
would not be a Broadcasting Department for a few
more years, since radio courses were considered
part of Oratory and Speech. [Journalism courses,
which had been offered at Emerson since about
1924, were considered a part of the English
Language and Literature Department.]
By
June of 1933, an engineer had installed a
microphone in one of the new classrooms, and
Edes, along with several other instructors,
taught students how to broadcast; their work was
heard throughout the building via a loudspeaker.
Emerson continued to add more courses in various
aspects of radio, training students to perform
in radio dramas, do chorale reading or
story-telling, and give talks about great
literature, and a growing number of Emerson
students could be heard on the air at several
Boston radio stations.
Media Credit: Emerson
Archives photo
In the 1940s WERS was also
housed at 130
Beacon. | But a
decade earlier, Emerson was already active in
radio broadcasting. In 1922, Emerson professors
and students made appearance on Boston's first
station, WGI. But what was unusual for that time
was that the president of Emerson, Henry
Lawrence Southwick, gave several performances
that year. He was heard all over the Eastern
United States, since AM radio signals travelled
long distances. In May of 1922, in fact, he
delivered a commencement address that was
broadcast, something very few colleges were
doing. I have always enjoyed pointing out to
newcomers that there is an interesting engraving
on the mantle of the fireplace in room 112, in
memory of President Southwick. Today, few
students know who he was (just as few students
know who the "Emerson" was, and no it wasn't
Ralph Waldo...).
So much that made
Emerson what it is today took place in 128 and
130 Beacon. From a few courses and a microphone
in 1933 came a complete broadcasting studio with
modern equipment, and finally the establishment
of a Department of Broadcasting in the mid
1940s. After that came the founding of WECB
(circa 1947) and then WERS (the first
educational FM station in New England, in early
November 1949); Emerson would even have its own
TV station, and the four pages of the monthly
"Emerson College News" had long since given way
to the weekly "Berkeley Beacon."
If
you spend some time in the Emerson Archives, you
can read about all the well-known Boston
broadcasters and journalists who came to speak
to the students over the years; there were so
many Emerson students who went on to successful
careers in media thanks to what they learned (it
was estimated in a 1939 article that nearly half
of Boston's leading announcers had been trained
at Emerson). Meanwhile, the Journalism program,
which at one time in the mid 1920s had consisted
of only one course (and students created their
own news stories by staging accidents so they
could practice reporting!), now operated a
number of courses and professional journalists
from the Boston Globe, the Boston Herald, and
other newspapers often taught them.
But
soon, 60 years of broadcasting and journalism
history at Emerson will be erased. The move to
the other side of campus will mean that the last
vestiges of that era will end. WERS has already
made the move, and the Mass Comm department was
split up several years ago--Visual and Media
Arts moved on, while Journalism stayed. But this
fall, for the first time, when I teach about
Emerson's media history, I will no longer be
able to show students where the Beacon was first
printed or where WERS and WECB first broadcast,
nor show them the plaque comemmorating President
Southwick and his commitment to radio in its
formative years.
I realize things change
and many companies move to new locations
(Emerson itself has moved several times). But
forgive me if I am just a little nostalgic about
the last of the elegant buildings, with their
memories of stars from the Golden Age of Radio.
Forgive me if I will miss the little
touches of craftsmanship that made these
buildings unique. And forgive me for missing a
bit of my own history too, since 128-130 Beacon
were where I spent large amounts of my time
since the day I was first hired as an adjunct 14
years ago. As Billy Joel said in 'Say Goodbye to
Hollywood': "Life is a series of hellos and
goodbyes, I'm afraid it's time for goodbye
again."
And while the other side of
campus may be nicer and newer, it won't have the
charm and it won't have that sense of continuity
with the past. It's a different Emerson now, and
that's probably a good thing, but it's a shame
that we have to walk away from our history in
the process. I learned a lot during my years in
Mass Comm East. And I won't forget it.
Media Credit: Tim
MacArthur
The faculty of the Journalism
Department was the last to leave 130
Beacon. |
Donna
L. Halper is an adjunct member of the
Journalism Department; she also teaches in
Visual and Media Arts and Continuing Education.
She is one of the editors of the Boston Radio
Archives and the author of "Invisible Stars: A
Social History of Women in American
Broadcasting."
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