Tag: Will

WILL At 100: From its first broadcast on April 6 1922, WILL evolves from high-tech novelty to pioneer broadcaster.

April 6, 1922, marked the first broadcast of the University of Illinois’ radio station WILL-AM, then operating as WRM. At the time, both listeners and the university were still figuring out the role of radio broadcasting in American life. In the century that followed, WILL built a program schedule dedicated to both learning and culture, expanding to FM, television and online.

WILL At 100: Langston Hughes poetry reading, recorded by WILL Radio

The WILL Radio archives include hundreds of hours of recorded programs captured on acetate discs from the 1940s and 50s, including a 1957 reading at the University of Illinois by 20th century African-American poet Langston Hughes. Jameatris Rimkus, an archivist the University of Illinois Library, tracked down the mislabeled discs, rescuing them from obscurity.