Washington State University Libraries, Manuscripts, Archives and Special Collections
MS 2019.26
Murrow, Edward R.
Preliminary Guide to the Edward R. Murrow Media
1940-1975
1 Linear feet of shelf space
1 Box
Audio and video recordings, some professionally created
by Edward R. Murrow and his employers over the course of his career, and some
personally created by Murrow in his home life.
(MASC STAFF USE) 2-10-01-6
Collection materials are in eng
Edward [Egbert] Roscoe Murrow was born on April 25, 1908, near Greensboro, North
Carolina. He was the youngest of three boys born to Roscoe and Ethel Murrow. The
family moved to Blanchard, Washington when Murrow was five. Subsequently, Murrow
attended Washington State College in Pullman, Washington, graduating in 1930. In
1934 he married Janet Brewster. Their son, Charles Casey, was born November 6, 1945,
in West London.
Murrow was hired by CBS in 1935 and worked for them until 1961. During those years he
worked as war correspondent in London, 1939 to 1945, vice president, director of
public affairs, 1945 to 1947, and news analyst and host for the television programs
Person to Person, See It Now, and Small World during the 1950s. He was on the CBS
board of directors from 1949 to 1955. In 1961, Edward R. Murrow was appointed
director of the United States Information Agency (USIA), serving until 1964. He died
on April 27, 1965.
The collection consists of four 16mm films and five reel-to-reel audio tapes. Several
are commercially created by Edward R. Murrow or his employers over the course of his
career, but several are personal materials. All of the professional materials are
believed to be copies. The item description is usually the title from the exterior of its
housing, information about format and extent, and then a description which has been
created in MASC from listening/watching the actual recording.
Materials are simply arranged by size, in order to house and preserve them safely and
efficiently.
All the materials have been digitized, and the digital copies are retained in MASC’s archival storage directories.
This collection is open and available for research use.
Copyright restrictions apply. Rights to the professionally produced materials have
not been investigated, but are presumably copyright the company which created them,
and WSU Libraries cannot grant usage rights. Unpublished materials created by Murrow
and his family are copyright the family, and the MASC can grant permissions for use
of those.
[Item description]
Preliminary Guide to the Edward R. Murrow Media, 1940-1975 (MS 2019.26)
Manuscripts, Archives, and Special Collections,
Washington State University Libraries, Pullman, WA.
Charles Casey Murrow, E.R. Murrow’s son, loaned the initial materials to the Murrow
College of Communications at Washington State University in fall of 2018, at which
point the MASC created digital copies of the materials. On August 28, 2019, Casey
Murrow donated them to the Washington State University Libraries. (MS.2019.26).
In October 2020, Casey Murrow indicated that he had additional materials that he
would be sending. Once those are received, the collection will be finalized.
This initial portion of this collection was processed by University Archivist Mark O’English in September 2020.
Edward R. Murrow Papers, 1927-1973 - Microfilm copies of papers held at Tufts University (PN4874.M89 E32x)
Edward R. Murrow Papers 1928-1932 (Cage 673)
Edward R. Murrow Papers 1935-1962 (Cage 4590)
This Is Edward R. Murrow, 1965/1976 (16mm 2917; VHS 11872)
This collection is indexed under the following headings in the online
catalog. Researchers desiring materials about related topics, persons, or
places should search the catalog using these headings.
Murrow, Edward R. -- Archives.
Murrow, Charles Casey
Murrow Family
Journalism
Sound Recordings
Moving Images
Oral histories
1
1
London Sounds – Battle of Britain. 5”
reel-to-reel audio tape, 12 minutes. E.R. Murrow in London, reporting on the
sounds heard on the city streets during the Blitz. Professional, obviously
intended for radio broadcast. There is some slowing/speeding distortion of
audio about 7 minutes in.
1940 October 6
1
2
Color print of “Casey” for E.R. Murrow. 7”
silent color 16mm film reel, 11 minutes. A water rafting trip. In 2020,
Casey Murrow describes his recall of the participants as him, his father,
one of his father’s friends from WSC, another boy Casey’s age, and he can
recall nothing further. He describes the trip as down the Rogue River,
noting that: “the boats were double-ended plywood rowboats which were
heavily braced. With gear and passengers, they were heavy and hard to row.
The rowers were guides who ran the river as a business. They also cooked and
kept the whole show together. Maybe it was 6 or 7 nights.”
1958 July
1
3
Mrs. Murrow - Reel #1. 7” reel-to-reel audio
tape, 14:30 minutes. Murrow family at Christmas: Dart and Lois Brewster
saying Merry X-Mas; E.R. Murrow trying to get Casey to record a message back
to the aunt and uncle. Sings Silent Night. Mrs. Robert Lester describing
Janet’s presents. Casey talks about a bicycle accident, and then talks about
his day(s), as Ed records it and plays it back. Good condition audio,
although the volume varies up and down during various Casey ‘day’s. It
sounds like they recorded over something else, and so the start is a ‘blurp’
of music, and then dead air and it doesn’t really begin until about the 40
second mark.
circa 1950
1
4
Mrs. Murrow - Reel #2. 7” reel-to-reel audio
tape, 31:45 minutes. Starts out with Casey singing, then E.R. eventually
comes in and asks Casey questions. The first two items on the contents list
on the back of the box seem to be incorrect, but the rest, starting with
“storm,” is. Starting with “Sunday morning,” it is Janet Murrow interviewing
Casey as a surprise for Ed. Good quality audio, but dead space in early
portions, notably about 25 seconds between Casey’s first song and then the
body of the recording. There is a very loud and dramatic background noise at
about 30:00 which stays in the background thereafter. The final minute is
just E.R. Murrow doing audio level tests.
circa 1950
1
5
Grandpa - telling stories. 7” reel-to-reel
audio tape, 32:15 minutes. Edward and Janet Murrow interviewing “grandpa,”
Janet Murrow’s father, Charles Huntington Brewster, who had been a car
dealer and before that a test-driver for Knox Automobile in Springfield,
Massachusetts. Single track sound. The audio has Murrow testing his sound
levels, and the real body of this starts about 65 seconds in. The audio is a
bit “mushy” on this one, and the sound level varies wildly. In 2020, Casey
Murrow notes that he had been supposed to do the interview, but had not been
able to so his parents stepped in.
Undated
1
6
Options 7515 II. 10” reel-to-reel audio tape,
59:30 minutes. Professional broadcast; an NPR broadcast retrospective of
Murrow’s career, including a good chunk of Murrow’s Buchenwald broadcast,
and his editorial on McCarthy.
1975 April 21
1
7
Person to Person. 12” color 16 mm. film, with
sound, 29:45 minutes. Apparently the full telecast of that day’s Person to
Person, which primarily features Marilyn Monroe.
1955 April 8
1
8-9
An Hour With Ed Murrow. Two 12” color 16 mm.
film reels, with sound, 59:00 minutes total. This appears to be the
broadcast tribute film “An Hour with Ed Murrow, Twenty Years of Broadcast
Journalism,” shown three days after his death.
1965 April 30