1892-1981
News Commentator

On the Radio.

Lowell Thomas made his debute as a newsreader and commentator in September 1930 and continued daily broadcasts until 14 May 1976. Before he became a radio personality, Thomas was already famous as an author, traveler, and lecturer, best-known for With Lawrence in Arabia (1924), the story of his time with T. E. Lawrence during World War I. Thomas's radio job was the result of CBS Radio president William S. Paley's attempt to convince the Literary Digest to sponsor a news broadcast on CBS instead of the news show it had on NBC. Once Thomas made a trial broadcast, Literary Digest publisher R. J. Cuddihy immediately fired his present reader, Floyd Gibbons, and hired Thomas. For six months Thomas's fifteen-minute nightly broadcasts were heard on NBC in the East and on CBS in the West. After that Thomas was heard only on NBC until 1947.

An American Voice.