The run
- Network
- NBC
- Years active
- 1954–1958
- Surviving broadcasts
- 52
- Genre
- docudrama
Digitised by the Old Time Radio Researchers and streamed from the Internet Archive item “Biography_in_Sound”; these recordings are in the public domain.
Source collection
Internet Archive audio collections
Rights
Public domain — no renewed US copyright
Cataloguing
Air dates and notes from the Archive item record
The shape of the run
What survives, year by year
12 dated broadcasts across 5 years on the air, with 1 year where nothing is known to survive. Brightness is transfer quality; empty cells are months lost to time.
Episodes
Start here
Listen to the run in order
Restored broadcasts from 1954, in original transmission order.
- 1. Sigmond Romburg · 24 Oct 1954
- 2. Carl Sandburg · 20 Feb 1955
- 3. Franklin Delano Roosevelt · 10 Apr 1955
- 01
Sigmond Romburg
24 Oct 1954 · 58 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
- 02
Carl Sandburg
20 Feb 1955 · 54 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
- 03
Franklin Delano Roosevelt
10 Apr 1955 · 54 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
- 04
George Washington
5 Jul 1955 · 59 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
- 05
Babe Ruth
16 Aug 1955 · 53 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
- 06
Thomas Wolfe
1 Nov 1955 · 58 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
- 07
Grantland Rice
14 Feb 1956 · 57 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
- 08
Connie Mack
10 Apr 1956 · 58 min
Broadcast on Syndicated. Transferred from the Internet Archive's Old Time Radio Researchers collection (public domain).
Also on NBC
NBC in 1954–1958
Other series the network carried while Biography in Sound was on the air.
Same seasons
docudrama on the air then
Series in the same genre whose runs overlapped this one.
What it became
The documentary hour
Tape, testimony and narration assembled into an argument about something that really happened. Biography in Sound and Hear It Now are the direct ancestors of the narrative documentary podcast.
Lineage is written by our editors, not inferred from listening data.
Descendants
Working in the tradition of Biography in Sound
Modern series carrying this form forward.
If you liked this
More to explore
Chosen by the same editors.
