Stay Tuned- Radio History in the Archive

In this compelling episode, we go back—to when radio wasn’t just technology- it was connection. A lifeline during the Great Depression. A steady presence through war. A shared experience that bound a country together.

And now? As legacy media shrink, local news weakens, and trusted public voices grow harder to find, we ask a bigger question: What are we losing—and who’s preserving what matters?

Rebecca Toov, Collections Archivist at the University of Minnesota lives inside the past—sorting, saving, and bringing forward the voices that shaped us.

From reel-to-reel recordings buried seven stories underground… to a powerful moment when radio stepped in during a time of crisis… to the raw force of hearing people speak in their own voices—

This conversation reminds us: history isn’t silent… unless we let it be. Because the need never went away. People still want to listen.  And maybe now more than ever, we need to remember how.

Today's episode is brought to you by the Joan of Arc Scroll Medal, a beautiful brass alloy medal, designed by award-winning artist, Pat Benincasa. This uniquely shaped medal is ideal for holiday or as a special occasion gift!    Visit www.patbenincasa-art.com

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Transcript

Pat:

Fill To Capacity ,where heart grit and irreverent humor collide. A podcast for people too stubborn to quit and too creative not to make a difference.

Pat:

Hi, I'm Pat Benincasa and welcome to Fill To Capacity. I'm glad you're joining us today. Episode #131. "Stay Tuned- Radio History in the Archive." Now, before I introduce my guest, let's go back to the early days of radio and a glimpse of American history. In the early 19 hundreds, radio was an experiment, curiosity. By 1920s and thirties, suddenly radio was everywhere. A voice in a box reaching millions of people at a time in living rooms on farms, in kitchens. Nothing like this had ever existed. During the Great Depression in World WarII, President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, FDR, turned radio into a lifeline. His Fireside Chats weren't just speeches. He spoke directly to the American people in their hardest moments, and they believed him because radio made it personal. Radio created shared culture, the same news, music, stories, and sports coast to coast all at once.

Pat:

Now, television arrived, and by the 1950s, people said radio was finished. Then rock and roll hit the music. Parents feared and teenagers lived for windows down dial tuned up, radio and rock and roll saved each other. Now, radio just kept reinventing itself. Talk radio FM and pr, satellite, and now podcasting because the need never went away. People wanna listen. Now, one of the things about doing a podcast timing is everything. And I, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention this, this week, March, 2026, CBS radio, shut down. CBS radio wasn't just a network, it was a standard. Edward R Murrow reported from the rooftops of London during the Blitz. Bombs falling, and his voice came through the radio and made Americans feel every single moment of it. He didn't just report the news, he bore witness with integrity, with clarity, with courage. Walter Cronkite, Charles Kuralt, Eric Sevareide- voices, people trusted completely, we are losing something real this week and in a moment when trusted voices have never been more important, ah, that loss hits hard and Minnesota.

Pat:

Well, it turns out it sits right in the middle of this radio story, which is exactly why I wanted to talk to my guest today. Rebecca Toov. Rebecca is the collections archivist at University of Minnesota Archives. She has spent years inside the records recordings and the documents that tell us how radio actually happened here. Her blog series U of M radio, on your historic dial digs into Minnesota's earliest stations, the voices behind the mic, and what archives reveal that maybe history books can miss. Well, welcome Rebecca. You know how excited I am to have you here, right.

Rebecca:

Well, I am so excited that you reached out, and thank you for the invitation. This is one of my favorite topics, so I'm happy to discuss it with you today.

Pat:

Fantastic. I guess we better start rolling up our sleeves, eh? Yeah.

Rebecca:

Here we go.

Pat:

Okay. So tell us about your role at the University of Minnesota Archives. Okay. What does a collections archivist do from day to day?

Rebecca:

Very simply, I preserve process and provide access to the records that document the history of the University of Minnesota. In reality, that involves many tasks and responses and provide access to the records that document the history of the University of Minnesota. But on any given day, I might be moving boxes in the archives. We require new records from a faculty member that retires, or I might be updating metadata on item records for audio recordings. So there's a full spectrum of activities that involve preserving historical records, and I'm happy to do them all.

Pat:

Okay. I gotta get to the heart of it. Why radio history? What pulled you in that direction?

Rebecca:

Well, fortunately at the University of Minnesota, there were very wonderful and dedicated program producers, station managers, and people that worked at Radio Station KUOM that made it a priority and importance to preserve their records. So in the early nineties, when radio station KUOM underwent a format change, it, it combined with WMMR, which was a student run station at the university, and they converted to an all music, student run station. But there's an entire history of decades of public broadcasting that was run by professionals that was recorded on reel to reel audio recordings and boxes upon boxes of scripts and program logs and schedules and promotional materials, all encompassing the radio station. For many years, those things after they donated were unprocessed, and they were relatively inaccessible because there were no lists or catalogs or things to find those materials. So in the late two thousands, 2015, university archivist Erik Moore wrote a grant for the Legacy Amendment, with the Minnesota Historical Society called Minnesota School On The Air. And what that grant did was, uh, create a position for an archivist to come and inventory all those records, process them, and go through the 11,000 reel to reel audio recordings that are all trade and stored in the caverns of Elmer Anderson Library on the West Bank campus, and make an inventory of all those reels to actually understand the full scope and extent of the recordings that have been preserved by the radio station.

Pat:

How far back do those, uh, recordings go?

Rebecca:

So the earliest reel to reels are 1945 or 1946.That's really when that format was created. So we do also have some phonographs and earlier records, but the bulk of the KUOM recordings were made possible with the real to real technology.

Pat:

I wanna ask, more of a macro view of radio in American culture. In the 1930s, Americans were buying radios at 28 per minute, and they were listening about five hours a day. Now, as an archivist who lives inside radio history, what do you think was going on at that moment?

Rebecca:

People wanted to be connected. They wanted to find information. I think that anytime we see an emerging or a new technology, people embrace it and want to understand it, especially in the thirties. At that time, even at the university, it was very early on in the development of the radio station, and especially even the decade prior in the 1920s, there was so much problems with interference, people experimenting with their own transmitting and receiving sets and, and those sort of things. And so by the time we get to the 1930s and there's more opportunity for people to put that box in their home, I think there was a yearning and a wanting to feel connected. Especially the, the radio station at the university was a really great amplifier, to use the pun intended, of sharing information that was coming from the university. It's research that was going on. But even things like broadcasting the gopher football games so that folks in outstate Minnesota could hear what was going on and could be connected in that way.

Pat:

Well, you bring up a very interesting point, because by the 1930s, as you say, when you talk about interference and the experimentation by the thirties, by the time they were starting to sell these boxes, these radio boxes, they had worked out reducing static and the other problems tuning drift, it was a little more stable. So I, I'm glad you brought up that point. Now, can you walk us through the history of WLB? What was it, when did it start and why does it matter in the larger history of American radio?

Rebecca:

Certainly. Well, just as you had said in the introduction, WOB began as an experiments in the electrical engineering department at the university. So the chair of the department, George Shepardson, as well as some of the other professors like Franklin Springer, they were experimenting with wireless telegraphy sending and receiving messages in the laboratory of the electrical engineering. And by 1914, started offering courses in radio signaling apparatus, radio transmission. And some of the very early broadcasts that were happening at the university were by students in the electrical engineering department because they had the training and they were doing the experimentation. And it's interesting that, again, we bring up that conversation about interference because in 1920, there was a professor that came to the U, his name was Cyril M. Jansky Jr. He actually came from Wisconsin, and he was the first to obtain an experimental license for the radio station at the university, which was known by 9XI at first.

Rebecca:

And at that time they were broadcasting daily market and weather report, some music programs and play-by-play of the home football games. But by January 13th, 1922, the university was granted a full license to operate under the call letters WLB. And a reason why we get to that point in the call letters is 'cause Cyril Jansky actually became an influential figure in establishing time sharing agreements and assignment of call letters. There was a large conference that was held by the Bureau of Commerce who becomes essentially the agency, a precursor to the Federal Communications Commission. So he was integral and involved in establishing those sort of requirements and licensing for radio and at the university, they had started to invest in this infrastructure. They built a studio in the electrical engineering building, put some furniture in there, and sort of more formalized it, taking it from an experiment to actually doing broadcasting.

Rebecca:

And then even moving forward, by 1938, they expanded the programming of the station. They purchased a new transmitter, put it on the St. Paul campus, and they went from about 10 hours a week to 30 hours a week of broadcasting. And to fill that time. They really relied on that expertise of what was around them. So we have faculty members coming in and talking about their research that they're doing. We also have professors and performers in the music department that are giving concerts on air. And what was really, I think, influential, especially at Minnesota and, and at the university was in 1938, they started a program called the Minnesota School of the Air, which offered 10 to 15 minute programs during the school. They specifically tailored for children in school, public schools, and private schools throughout Minnesota. And for those programs, they used and relied on casts of students who were in the theater department and speech and communication to do the voices, the sound effects, write the scripts, and do the dramatizations.

Rebecca:

And that was a really unique feature of the, the station. At that time, WLB becomes KUOM. In 1945, they changed the call letters to better align with the University of Minnesota: K University of Minnesota. And the, the station really broadcasts for many years outside out of Eddie Hall, which is today the oldest building on the University of Minnesota campus. But in 1972, new studios were built for the radio station and to incorporate the development of television production and other services in media, which was then housed at Rarig Center, which is on the West Bank. And that's where Radio K operates today, essentially in 1993, due to some budgetary issues, they decide to, uh, move the station to be all music student run. And that's why we have radio K today.

Pat:

Well, I wanna explain to our listeners. When we talk about University of Minnesota Twin Cities, there are two campus sites, the West Bank and St. Paul, the East Bank. So East side and the West side. So that's what we're talking about. And you know, I love how you began this because when people start catching on, it was almost like the wild West of scrambling for airtime. What did that mean? And the entity that oversaw that, the Federal Radio Commission had, they had to come up some way with the government stepping in. 'cause you couldn't have all these people on the air at the same time. And so the Federal Radio Commission became the FCC, the Federal Communications Commission, which we have today. And I love how you, how you give us this rich history of how organically radio developed at U of M, how it was taken hold of and refined. And I was gonna ask you about Minnesota School of the Air, but you, you answered that so beautifully. I love how there was a localized quality to radio as if it was understood that radio had to be of service.

Rebecca:

Absolutely. And that's the key. When it moved from experiment to actually a program that the university was going to support, the place that they put the radio station was in the General Extension Division in the Community Service Department. And so the radio station and the philosophy of broadcasting itself was that this was a medium and a method in order to share information to serve that outreach capacity of the university. That's why we see coming and emanating from this department were, which was also putting on concerts and lectures and institutes and other educational programs beyond what you could take for credit as a student at the university, thinking of the university as extending beyond the campus in ways that radio could do.

Pat:

It almost seems like a model for what was happening with radio across the country. It became, in many ways, localized so that communities could have their reports on weather or local music programs or school meetings, PTA. So there's this component to radio that began to be understood as something that the community or the area, the region could utilize. It wasn't just airing. It was like cause and effect. Oh, we need to have this. Let's talk about that. That seems really quite a remarkable piece of radio history that folks really wanted more information about where they were, their community, what they needed to know. So is there a Minnesota radio story you wish more people knew about?

Rebecca:

Oh, there's many.

Pat:

I figured there would be,.

Rebecca:

But there's one I think that is emblematic of telling the connection to community and the real public service element that the radio station served. And that is the story of the role that radio station KUOM played during the polio epidemic in Minnesota in 1946. So in the summer of 1946, there was an influx of cases of polio, and there were voluntary quarantines that were advised at this time. Uh, Hubert Humphrey was the mayor of Minneapolis, that alongside the public health officials, they had sort of encouraged all children to stay at home, not congregate with each other. And imagine how hard that would be to do in the middle of the summer when school's out. But it was actually upon the columnist George Grim from the Tribune. He put a suggestion in his column that said, why doesn't KUOM, which is a non-commercial station, they don't have to run advertisements and be beholden to commercials. Why don't they provide some programming to entertain children while they have to stay at home and stay inside? And the station ran with it. They already had experience creating children's programs because of the Minnesota School of the Air. So it was a really easy adaptation to make. So almost overnight, they converted a significant amount of their daily broadcast schedule to programs for children

Pat:

Who was this Star Tribune writer, what was his name?

Rebecca:

George Grim. And he actually came into the studio and had his own program. So he read the funny pages from the newspaper and gave voices and all those sorts of things to entertain the children. But there were some really wonderful programs that engaged children. One of them was called Drawing to Music. And the announcer, Kenn Berry and the assistant curator at the University Gallery, Betty Maurstad, ran a program where they, they played music, classical music, and invited children to draw what they heard. And they offered it as a contest, invited children to, to do their drawings again. They're at home, they can't go outside, they can't go to the movies, they can't go to the playground. So they're listening in, tuning in to listen to, to Kenn and Betty, listen to the music. And then what they did was sponsored a contest. So they would select drawings that were sent into the radio station, and then for each age group they would award a winner for, and then describe the artwork over the air.

Rebecca:

And as an incentive for the children to stay inside and listen to the radio programs. They said, when the epidemic is over, your artwork will go on display in the University Gallery, which we know today as Wiseman Art Museum. And then they also held a big party that was hosted by the radio station after the polio epidemic was over for all the students who had listened in now drawing to music. Also, there were programs called Rhyme Time inviting students, or, and children to write their own poems and create their own creative creations in addition to a public health official from the university, gave talks about the hygiene and cleanliness and help children understand what was going on in this moment and what polio was. Because there was some fear in that. And I think the reason why this story resonates with me so much is because this came up during the pandemic that we experienced in 2020 where so many people were trying to make sense of what is going on here? What is this disease? How are we spreading this? And we actually see the proliferation of podcasts during this time 'cause people are seeking connection because we couldn't be together. And so often times I look back into history to understand what's going on in certain moments in our present. Right. And this gave a really great example to show how community came together to provide a service to protect children from the spread of a disease, but also to help them understand and make meaning of the world that, of what was going on in the world around them.

Pat:

What a story. . What a moment in time that you've captured and it feels so fresh, as you say, because of COVID and the fear and people not knowing and what, what's going on. And then, you know, Minnesota had the wherewithal to let kids in on what was going on and their parents, but I love that how they were engaging children to listen, to draw, to participate, to create writings, whatever, you know, whatever they called upon them to do to engage them. During a very, very scary time in their lives.

Rebecca:

And the reason why I we know about this is because the records of the production of those programs and the letters and some of the artwork that were created by the children that were sent into are preserved at University archives in the records and the records of the papers of Betty Girling, who was the head of the Minnesota School of the Air. And if you'd indulge me just for a minute, I have one of those letters prepared. So this goes to tell you, not only were they engaging creativity in children and keeping them engaged, but what you had talked about earlier about this community level and the announcers coming into our homes and finding so much connection with the people that are telling us the news and are entertaining us and, and those sort of things. I think that this letter really speaks to the service that KUOM performed in this.

Rebecca:

This is a letter from young girl named Adrian who sent it into the radio station in September of 1946 after the epidemic had petered out. And Adrian says, dear KUOM, I want to thank you for the programs you put out during the polio epidemic. Here's the way I want to thank you. Allis Rice is so very nice and so is Betty Girling. Betty Maurstad's program is full of twirling and whirling. Ray Christensen and Ruth Swanson are so good in every play. Kenn Berry is such an actor and I hear him almost every day. Bob Boyle reads the newscast, the best you've ever heard. Paul Matthews is such a good reader, he never stumbles on a word. Bob Runyon is an announcer, and I think he is very good, and so is the engineer who's not on the air, but I think he should. There are others on and off the air that I have forgotten or do not know, like Dr. O'Brien and the one who's on homemaker's quarter hour, whose first name is Jo.

Rebecca:

I want to thank KUOM for making the polio epidemic more pleasant. And to me and everyone else, it was the best of any present. And I apologize, I get a little emotional when I when I read that letter because it just goes to show, I think any announcer, any of those people that were involved in that programming, that this Adrian named who she was listening to for weeks while she was quarantined inside her home, waiting for the polio epidemic to go away, all of these people helped her get through it, and her way of thanking them is to write a poem, which was part of what the programming was. So I think it's a really great way to showcase the power of radio to even individuals and what it means to them.

Pat:

Listen, I was getting emotional, just listening to it. You can feel it's palpable her gratitude and what that lifeline meant to her. I wanna go in a different direction for a moment, a technical question. When you talk about going through records, letters, recordings from the 1940s on technically speaking, like do, is there disintegration in those recordings? Like what kind of technical problems do you run into with, you know, older documentation?

Rebecca:

So for the reel to reel audio recordings, we don't have the playback equipment to actually play them. So the ones that we have been able to digitize, we've sent them out to be converted by technicians. Actually, one of the ironies of doing the inventory of those 11,000 reels was I couldn't listen to them at the time. So a technical question or a thinking, thinking about the process is that they are all preserved in tape boxes on the outside of the tape boxes are labels, which might have, uh, various information on them from who's being interviewed on the broadcast to maybe it has a timestamp that says it's 11 minutes long or a 58 minutes long. And so all I had to go off of was the information that was written on the back of the tape box or included in a queue sheet that might have been put inside the tape box to go along with the reel.

Rebecca:

And from that list, then we were able to create inventories and then send those recordings to the vendor who did the audio conversion. And then when they come back, then we get the audio file and then I do a process of quality checking to see did it convert properly? Are there any irregularities with the broadcast? Is there things missing? And so the interesting parts of that was I kind of felt, you know, that classic Twilight Zone episode where the gentleman survives a nuclear attack and all he wanted to do was read and he finds that he, he survived the attack and the public library also survived. And he has all this time to read, but then as glasses break,

Pat:

Yes.

Rebecca:

So, so I felt like, oh, I am going through these tapes and I'm seeing names on the tapes, like an interview with Shirley Chisholm, an interview with Cokie Roberts, an interview with Walter Mondale, this program, that program, and I'm, I'm just like yearning to listen to these programs, but I felt so I can't listen to them. And so fortunately through University Archives was able to apply to three subsequent grants that enabled us to get the funding to convert those audio recordings into digital audio recordings, which we now, uh, make publicly available. So since then we've been able to convert over 5,000 of those reels, which are now up and available online in the U media archive, which is our repository for digitized materials.

Pat:

I have to say, I've been in the Elmer Anderson archives and folks, it's seven stories underground with a certain kind of rock formation on the edges of each level that you go down. They have an incredible air conditioning monitoring system, and then if you look, you'll see acres and acres of shelving with boxes. It whoa, it is amazing the care and the organization that goes into preserving history.

Rebecca:

Yeah.

Pat:

What a view you have. It's almost like you have a crystal ball that can go back in time as you explore these recordings, these letters, and you're a time traveler. So I, I'm just curious, when you sit with these old recordings now, what still resonates or is there something that feels current?

Rebecca:

Yes, I feel like you could give me any topic right now and I could pull out a historic radio broadcast and have it for you ready to go about how it applies to something going on right now in the world or, or any moment. I think what, what resonates with me most the power of preserving radio is that we are preserving the voices of people who lived lives and had something to say. And I think that the power of that is that preserving their voice allows them to speak for themselves even after they're gone. So a lot of folks who do archival research, and in many cases we're relying on paper records, so reports, correspondence, photographs, other types of materials which you can read somebody's writing, but when you listen to somebody speak and you hear the tone and inflection in their voice and you hear the en and sometimes the environment around them, maybe it's a lecture and you can hear the tapping on the chalkboard of the, of the professor, you know, writing out the notes for the lecture or it is a recording of a lecture or a speech or presentation that was given in Northrop Auditorium and you hear the audience clapping and you hear sort of pause for emphasis and these sort of things.

Rebecca:

I think it's really powerful to be able to preserve the spoken word and to be able to let people speak for themselves.

Pat:

I think that says everything. So much of our culture is mediated. So much of what we watch or listen to, I can remember like with political speeches on tv, there'd be a commentator coming in and telling the viewers what we just listened to today when, uh, newscasts people are interpreting what's been said. We have a mediated culture. And the power of what you're describing is letting the voice come through, letting people speak for themselves. And that is such a sign of respect to those of us listening that all we need to do is listen and we'll make up our own minds as to what we just heard. And there's something so cause and effect the directness of that is something that we can truly honor. It's really quite a privilege to have like doing what you're doing, but allowing us if we're researching to hear the voices directly.

Rebecca:

Yeah, absolutely. And I think especially in the case of KUOM, they were fortunate to have at their home two very prominent women who were involved in the production and programming and its history. And that includes Betty Girling, who I mentioned previously, but also Marian Watson, who is the longtime station manager. And that influenced a lot of what programming got on the air as well. Again, making that inventory of those 11,000 recordings I kept in my memory bank. Okay. When I am finally able to listen, these are the programs I'm gonna wanna listen to first, there's wonderful programs like Equal Voice, which in the 1970s was produced by Carol Robertshaw and it had women speaking on issues from the Equal Rights Amendment to daycare facilities and support for other issues in women's rights. There was a program called What About Women that was hosted by Barbara Stuhler of the World Affairs Center and Vera Schletzer , who is the co-director of the Women's Continuing Education Program and Breaking the Silence Voices on Battered Women with Sharon Rice Vaughan, who was the co-founder of Women's Advocate Science Lives, Women and Minorities in Science.

Rebecca:

So actually giving program space and creating ways to profile women and women's issues. And that's really, you mentioned, uh, the podcast that I threw a few episodes together for and one of the seasons of that podcast, I really wanted to highlight the work of women and highlight their voices and let them speak for themselves as well because especially in the history of the University of Minnesota, and let's be honest in general, a lot of the history of women and women's stories is told by men, or it is generalized or it's a game of telephone and we're just sharing what we heard before. But the power of the recorded audio is that we can, if we wanna know what Geraldine Ferraro thought about her run with Walter Mondale for, uh, the presidential ticket in 1984, she can just tell us because she told an auditorium at Northrop Auditorium in 1984 after the election was over.

Rebecca:

And so we can hear from her own voice what that meant to her and what that candidacy was. We can hear from women like Eugenie Anderson, who is one of the first women ambassadors from Minnesota from Red Wing, hear about what it meant for her to be in that role. And we can hear just all sorts of issues where I don't need to guess, I don't need to write new description, I don't need to to do any additional work. I can just give you the recording and transcribe it as well. That's the beauty of some of the technology that we have, is that we can do audio, uh, transcription so we can also have closed captioning and those sort of things as well. And actually let the women tell their own stories and, and hear from them about their perspectives.

Pat:

Rebecca, in 1984, I was in that auditorium sitting towards the front because I would not miss that for anything in the world. I wanted to see her and I wanted to hear her. . So coming full circle, the voices in and of themselves. That's it.

Rebecca:

Absolutely.

Pat:

You know, you're touching on something that I've been wanting to ask you, and again, I'm going to a macro view of early years of radio. So who had access to the microphone in those earlier years of radio and who didn't?

Rebecca:

Well, at, at the University of Minnesota, it was basically in, in charge of, for a long time, Burton Paul, who is the head of the department, and it really came out of the decisions of the university who were in charge of staffing the radio station. But I will say, you know, you mentioned CBS radio going out earlier in our conversation, the Corporation for Public Broadcasting was very influential in being able to support local radio stations to expand their productions and their programming and to add to what they were able to do. So at KUOM, they received several CPB community grants, which enabled station manager Marian Watson to expand to feature an Indian news program that was completely put together by women who were part of the American Indian community in the Twin Cities and enabled them to have a Spanish language program. And so that additional funding that came from CPB support allowed the station to expand and to bring in experts and to bring in representatives from the communities that they maybe weren't traditionally serving.

Pat:

Now I wanna shift gears right now. There are 4.6 million podcasts worldwide with 619 million listeners and growing. I gotta tell you, I'm just happy for the listeners I get when I think about all these podcasts going on. I'm just grateful listeners to have you here. Okay, I digress Now. So we have 619 million listeners and growing the need to listen never went away. It just keeps finding new ways home. Rebecca, here's what I keep thinking about. Radio created a shared experience, everybody hearing the same thing at the same time, podcasting feels more personal, more individual. Are we losing something or just changing the shape of listening?

Rebecca:

I might say the latter. Changing the shape of listening. I think that there's just proliferation of access and options, right? So if we're thinking back to KUOM in 1946, you're listening to WCCO or KUOM or May or maybe if you, depending on how far you're receiving set, can pick up a signal Right now we can go online and listen to any podcast whether we subscribe to it or not. Here's another parallel that I will bring up in thinking through our own experience of the pandemic is that in many ways, just like the children in 1946 we're listening to the radio station, many of us were returning to podcasts to get information thinking about the children in 1946 who were listening to Dr. O'Brien talk about the public health official talking about and understanding what polio meant. I was listening to Michael Osterholm, explain to me what COVID-19 was and getting the latest information a a about this, right. And to try to understand what we were going through.

Pat:

Michael Osterholm is a regions professor at University of Minnesota School of Public Health and Director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy during COVID. He became a household name, time named Osterholm to the 2026 time 100 health list of the world's most influential leaders in health. Okay. Back to Rebecca.

Rebecca:

And I think though that that actually the proliferation of podcasts creates another challenge for archives because here's another medium that we have to try to capture and preserve, which we're doing at University archives. So a lot of the, uh, podcasts that are produced by University of Minnesota's Centers, departments, individuals, we're preserving those in the University Digital Conservancy. So technology will always change, but there will always be a need to listen, to watch in whatever form that takes. We should make it a priority and a precedent to preserve whatever form that is so we can listen to it for years to come. In that sense, I hope you are thinking about ways in which you are preserving your podcast episodes.

Pat:

Rebecca, you are so right. And actually this hits close to home, the Upper Midwest Literary Archives at the University of Minnesota will be housing the Pat Benincasa Collection, my journals sketchbooks eBooks, project notes blueprints. And yes, this podcast, I'm a working artist and there's a seven ton glass and steel skylight sculpture on the State Capitol Grounds. And the archives will capture all of that, the art, the teaching, the writing, and every episode of Fill ToCapacity. So when you talk about preservation, I feel that personally. So U of M does everything. I mean they are like, if you're watching a TV program, it's like they're a character in the program. They're a character in the life of our community here. Just a rich, rich partner in what Minnesota is and how we go about our lives here.

Rebecca:

I'll just add that I myself am a graduated of the University of Minnesota and the program that I graduated from started as the General Extension Division. So I feel a connection to this history as well because I received my education as a benefit from this portion of the university. So it's made it, uh, really enriching and, and provided a great connection and, and why I'm so passionate about preserving, uh, these materials and these records.

Pat:

Oh, absolutely. You spend your life saving the past for the future. What do you want future people to understand about this moment we're living in right now?

Rebecca:

Ooh. I think that understanding the present, again, as I had mentioned before, I often look to the past to understand the present, but the past also gives me hope for the future. So in the same way that folks were uncertain about what was going on with polio and what it was doing, a cure came. And so there's always ways to think about challenging times and get hope for knowing that there are people dedicated to public service, to research, to innovation, committed to and have as values, connection to community and support. And I think looking to the past to see reminders of those things can help us through whatever present moment challenges we're getting through and really strive to make our world, our communities a better place.

Pat:

Wow. Beautifully said Rebecca, what a conversation you've reminded us that radio was never just technology, it was connection, a voice reaching into people's lives when they needed it most. And here we are still listening and as you beautifully pointed out, just in different ways and wow, the archives matter, the voices matter and people who preserve them like you matter more than ever. Thank you for bringing this history and sharing your work. Oh my God, you brought it to life and thank you for coming on Fill To Capacity. Thank you so much.

Rebecca:

Well thank you. And I look forward to maybe one day researching the PAT collection at Elmer l Anderson Library.

Pat:

Well thank you for that. And thank you listeners for joining us today and see you next time. Bye.