WEBVTT

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- We watch so much television,

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that it's important for
people to understand

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the women who helped to create it.

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I'm Jennifer Keishin Armstrong,

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author of When Women Invented Television.

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My book is about a time
between 1948 and 1955,

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when women did a lot more,

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both in front of the camera

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and behind the scenes of television's

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formative days than most people realize.

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In my book When Women Invented Television,

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I focus on four women,

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from this time of early television
who were really pioneers.

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One of them is Gertrude Berg,

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she created the family
sitcom for television

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and started her own show
called The Goldbergs.

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It takes place in the living room,

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it's centered on the family,

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there are a few minor little problems

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that they have to solve in
the 30 minutes and they do it.

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Another of the women that I
focus on is Irna Phillips,

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who created the soap opera genre.

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She was actually instructed
by her boss and radio

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to make something that
would appeal to women,

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so that they could
literally sell them soap

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and she eventually had something

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like seven shows on the air at once.

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The third woman that I
focus on is Hazel Scott.

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She got the chance to
have her own variety show.

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This made her in 1950
the first black person

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to have her own show on
prime time nationally.

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And the fourth woman that
I focus on is Betty White,

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so she was on four, five
and a half hours a day,

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six days a week

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and no script, live, just
improving with her cohost.

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What we think of now
as daytime talk shows.

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The House Un-American Activities Committee

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was the subcommittee within our government

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formed to go after communists.

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They would often go
after at first filmmakers

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and then as things went on,

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musicians and television personalities.

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This 1950 iteration of
the Hollywood blacklist,

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it had a real chilling
effect on television,

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it enforced racism and sexism

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which hits television pretty hard in 1950.

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Hazel Scott actually lost
her show because of it,

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because she was actually listed.

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Gertrude Berg's TV husband
Philip Loeb was also listed,

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this really wrecked her show's momentum.

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If you think about the late fifties,

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this is the television we
look back on and joke about

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because it's being so
careful to not be political.

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Around the 1970s, ideas about

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what makes good television
start to really change.

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So of course, Betty White went on

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to have the longest
television career in history

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and continues to.

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Gertrude Berg went on to have
a nice career on Broadway.

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Hazel Scott got sick of the United States,

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she actually said it was mostly the racism

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that she was sick of.

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So she actually ended up going to Europe

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where they loved her

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and Irna Phillips actually
went on to incredible success.

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She had a hand in Days of Our Lives,

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created As The World Turns,

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she still had The Guiding
Light on television.

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So these are shows that lasted,

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Days of Our Lives is still on the air.

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I would say that the biggest takeaway

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of When Women Invented Television

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is that women helped to invent television.

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That was why I put it in the title

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and I really wanted to hammer that home

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especially at a time when
we watch so much television.