A Guide to the Robert Trout Papers, 1930-1999

Biographical Note

Robert Trout's career as a radio and television broadcaster spanned almost the entire history of those media in the twentieth century. His colleagues and the public admired the intelligence, fairness, subtlety, and self-depreciating wit that informed his work. Trout, born Robert Blondheim in Washington D.C. in 1909, originally aspired to a writing career. In 1931, he was doing odd jobs and developing scenarios for plays at radio station WJSV in Alexandria, Virginia, when he filled in on the air. Soon, he was writing, editing, and broadcasting regularly. The Columbia Broadcasting Network (CBS) took WJSV as its first Washington, D.C. area affiliate in 1932, and Trout covered the election and inauguration of President Franklin D. Roosevelt for the network. In 1935, CBS transferred Trout to New York City and designated him its first Special Events Reporter. The network had no news department at that time. Trout reported news events, conducted interviews, hosted entertainment programs, and became radio's first news anchor. In 1938, Trout wed Catherine "Kit" Crane. She became a significant partner in his career, serving as his personal manager, providing him with research for his broadcasts, and critiquing his on-air performances.

For over sixty years, Trout worked in American broadcasting. He could remain on the air for hours at a time, reporting calmly and accurately, which earned him the nickname, "The Iron Man of Radio." His coverage of breaking news during World War Two shaped the memories of many Americans, and his reports from political conventions and presidential inaugurations became institutions. Ultimately, he covered almost all of America's major party conventions, presidential elections and inaugurations between Roosevelt's election in 1932 and the conventions of 2000. Though Trout spent most of his career at CBS, he also broadcast for the National Broadcasting Company (NBC) and for the American Broadcasting Company (ABC).

In 1965, the Trouts moved to Europe, residing in Paris and later Madrid. Trout wrote commentary pieces and acted as a European correspondent on radio and television for CBS and later ABC. Following Kit Trout's death and his retirement from ABC in the mid-1990s, Trout divided his time between New York and Madrid. His commentaries appeared on National Public Radio [NPR] from 1995 until two weeks before his death, at the age of ninety-one, in November 2000.

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Scope and Contents

Professional Career Series, 1931-1992: A variety of records document the length and breadth of Robert Trout's professional career, 1931-1992. Trout created the bulk of the material in the course of his work as a radio and television broadcaster. The Broadcasting files (bulk 1931-1974) include manuscripts, printed material, correspondence, and ephemera related to specific broadcasts or series programs. The Political Broadcasts (1936-1989) include Trout's notebooks on American politics. The form of the material in the Films and Recordings files (bulk 1939-1954) and the Personal appearances files (bulk 1936-1965) is similar to that in the Broadcast files. Trout documented his own professional career with his Publicity and Promotion files (bulk 1935-1965), which consists primarily of clippings and other printed material. Trout's work as an author and his efforts to create new ideas for radio and television are reflected in the Literary Productions and Other Creative Works (bulk c. 1930-1960), which includes manuscripts, notes, and printed material.

Robert and Kit Trout both maintained the files, ordering and titling them systematically in the early 1960s. After their move to Europe, they did not maintain their filing system as consistently, and files were stored in various locations. The following arrangement approximates the Trouts' original filing structure. Titles have been assigned to some untitled files. Indexes to the broadcast files, created by the Trouts, are at the head of the Broadcast files. Photographs, audio tapes, and three-dimensional and oversize items have been separated from folders in this series to the Photographic Material Series, Sound Recordings and Videotapes Series, Oversize Material Series, and the Artifact Collection.

Radio and Television Series, 1931-1992; Films and Recordings Series, 1935-ca. 1983; Personal Appearances Series, 1936-1989: Robert and Kit Trout maintained chronologically arranged files on his appearances as a broadcaster, film or recording personality, and public speaker. The Radio and Television files include preparatory materials, notes, scripts written by Trout and others, transcripts, and such printed material as press passes, fact books, programs, tickets, clippings, press releases, and publicity materials. Some files include correspondence with broadcast participants, producers and network executives, and with listeners or viewers. Trout's files for his political broadcasts are similar in content. They include notebooks, created by the Trouts, of historical and reference material for use during broadcasts. Trout's files on his film and recording work and his Personal appearances, a small part of the series, are similar in arrangement and form.

The Radio and Television files reflect the changing nature of Trout's career. In its first phase, 1931-1941, Trout performed on the air in a wide variety of capacities for WJSV and CBS. As a Special Events Reporter, he covered speeches, parades, dinners, sports and other public occasions, as well as reading news reports and appearing on entertainment programs. He covered President Franklin Roosevelt (FDR) extensively. Trout was CBS's correspondent in London, 1941-1943. After his return to New York and before his move to Europe, Trout worked primarily as a news broadcaster for CBS (1943-1948, 1952-1965) and NBC (1948-1951) and made fewer special events broadcasts. Trout saved few records of routine daily news programs, which he made for both the CBS network and its New York television affiliate, WCBS (1954-1965). In the final phase of his career, after moving to Europe in 1965, Trout created commentary pieces, primarily on European news and culture. The Radio and Television subseries contains more records of his later television commentaries than has radio work.

The broadcasting files document the many radio innovations and milestones in which Trout participated: coining the term "fireside chat" for Roosevelt's informal broadcasts, being the only American broadcaster at King George VI's coronation, becoming broadcasting's first news anchor on World News Round-Up, remaining on the air for seven hours during the Allied invasion of Europe, covering the United Nations Charter Conference, and announcing the surrender of Japan in 1945. Trout also participated in pioneering entertainment series, including the early radio game show Professor Quiz, and the celebrity panel show Who Said That?, which was broadcast on both radio and television. During the last decades of his career, Trout worked primarily as a commentator, further developing the urbane, wry persona that his audience already knew.

The Political Broadcasts document both Trout's abilities as radio's "iron man" and the evolution of that persona. Trout made a number of marathon political broadcasts, including one of fifteen hours during the Democratic national convention in 1952. His career longevity and storytelling ability also made him radio's unofficial political historian, a role that he began to play in the 1950s. Political Broadcasts also include Trout's critiques of broadcasts, correspondence with colleagues, and network memos and ads, which illuminate changing methodologies and philosophies of political coverage.

Trout maintained separate files on one-time special events broadcasts and on series programs. Because Trout often revisited topics of old broadcasts or commemorated their anniversaries on the air, he added clippings and other collected material to the broadcast files, and sometimes moved scripts between the files. In effect, he used the broadcast files as reference files. Though the files have been grouped in folders and inclusive dates added to indicate Trout's additions to the files, they have been left as he ordered and titled them. The inventory of the Radio and Television subseries includes the titles of the broadcasts within the individual folders.

During processing, Trout's conventions of separating broadcast files from series program files and radio work from television work were made consistent. The Political Broadcasts division was created during processing. The Trouts filed many scripts, transcripts, mementos, and notes related to specific broadcasts in the folders grouped as the General Information files, and advertisements and other promotional materials in their Promotion and Publicity files. That material has been left in place. Trout's autobiographical writing about his career is in Promotion and Publicity and in Literary Productions. Information, including legal documentation, about Trout's broadcasts is also in the Memos and Correspondence series. Stories Trout researched but did not broadcast are among the General Information files, as are further reference files for broadcasts and material Trout collected about radio and television history. Proposals for Media and Creative Works documents broadcasting projects Trout created or proposed which were not completed.

Trout's speaking skills and celebrity, gained through his broadcasting career, made him desirable as an announcer and lecturer to groups aside from his network employers. Trout made films and recordings for media outlets, advertisers, charitable organizations, and broadcasting colleagues. He made speaking appearances before advertisers, public and private associations, and industry groups. Some of the Personal Appearance files include documentation of film work. In films and recordings, Trout generally acted as a narrator for the work's sponsor. Trout wrote the speeches, which typically include anecdotes from his career and political analysis, for his public appearance.

Notes and clippings related to film, recording, and public appearance work are in the General Information files. The Proposals for Media and Creative Works subseries includes information regarding uncompleted film and recording projects. Correspondence and printed material related to Trout's lecture bureau, W. Colston Leigh, is in the Professional Correspondence Subseries. Some audio tapes related to Trout's career are in the Sound recordings series. Photographs from the files have been separated to the Photographic materials series and photocopies put in their places.. In the early 1980s, Trout made a series of audiotaped recollections about his career for ABC News. Transcripts of those tapes were added to Films and Recordings during processing. A videotaped interview of Trout by the Archive of American Television (1999) and its transcript has been added to the Photographic material series.

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Administrative Information

Preferred Citation

Robert Trout Papers, 1930-1999, Center for American History, The University of Texas at Austin.

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Detailed Description of the Papers