Summary Information
Walter Trohan Papers
1950-1968
U.S. Mss 102AF
1.6 c.f. (4 archives boxes)
Wisconsin Historical Society (Map)
Editorial radio scripts broadcast over WGN by a Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune. Complete between 1951 and 1968, the editorials comment on most of the important political events of the period. A slim miscellaneous file contains clippings and a brief memoir.
English
http://digital.library.wisc.edu/1711.dl/wiarchives.uw-whs-us0102af ↑ Bookmark this ↑
Biography/History
Walter Trohan, newspaperman and Washington correspondent for the Chicago Tribune for over thirty-five years, was born in Mt. Carmel, Pa. on July 4, 1903. Trohan graduated from Notre Dame University in 1926. His distinguished career began with the Daily Calumet, a Chicago newspaper, in 1922, and led to his becoming chief of the Washington bureau of the Chicago Tribune on January 1, 1948. Trohan was befriended by a host of international celebrities. He said himself in his memoirs “My Thirty-five Years in Washington” that “...I know not only anyone you might name, but I also knew his father or his grandfather.” His special assignments included trips to Europe and North Africa as foreign correspondent and coverage of two Summit Conferences in 1955 and 1960. Trohan was a member of the White House Correspondent Association and president of the group in 1937 and 1938; Overseas Writers, Chicago Historical Society, the J. Russell Young School of Expression and others. He edited two major studies in 1948, Jim Farley's Story (Farley was an entrepreneur, member of the Democratic National Committee and Postmaster General from 1933 to 1940) and The Roosevelt Years, published a number of articles and lectures. He admits to conservatism and is an outspoken critic of liberalism which he feels forms a "straight-jacket" around our thinking.
Scope and Content Note
The Walter Trohan Scripts, 1950-1968, are arranged chronologically. In addition to four boxes of radio scripts, there is one folder of miscellaneous material.
The scripts for Trohan's weekly radio broadcasts over an eighteen-year period beginning in August, 1950 (one script) and running unbroken from January, 1951 to December, 1968. Gaps of approximately one month each year seem to indicate vacation time. The substance of the broadcasts is political commentary, editorial rather than objective. Each broadcast covers an important political event (i.e. presidential primaries and elections, presidential tours, foreign and demostic crisis, congressional debates, etc.) and sometimes subordinate matters. The scripts touch upon all the major news items in the political sphere during these years. Trohan has a knack for the personal touch and the aside, thus his broadcasts contain a rather substantial human element.
The miscellaneous file contains eight documents from newspaper clippings to a speech presented in 1968 which defines Trohan's own brand of conservatism and presents his notion of the opposite persuasion (see Miscellaneous File Cover Sheet). Perhaps the most interesting document in the file is a memoir entitled "My Thirty-five Years in Washington." This paper clearly presents the "Trohan flavor."
Administrative/Restriction Information
Presented by Walter Trohan, Washington, D.C., December 1969.
Processed by Connie Gallagher, December 16, 1969.
Contents List
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Radio Scripts
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Box
1
Folder
1
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1950, Aug.; 1951
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Box
1
Folder
2
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1952
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Box
1
Folder
3
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1953
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Box
1
Folder
4
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1954
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Box
2
Folder
1
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1955
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Box
2
Folder
2
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1956
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Box
2
Folder
3
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1957
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Box
2
Folder
4
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1958
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Box
3
Folder
1
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1959
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Box
3
Folder
2
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1960
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Box
3
Folder
3
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1961
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Box
3
Folder
4
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1962
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Box
3
Folder
5
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1963
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Box
4
Folder
1
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1964
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Box
4
Folder
2
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1965
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Box
4
Folder
3
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1966
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Box
4
Folder
4
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1967
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Box
4
Folder
5
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1968
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Box
4
Folder
6
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Miscellaneous File
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