Sol Taishoff papers
Collection
0041-MMC-LAB
Sol Taishoff was founder, editor-in-chief, and later sole owner of Broadcasting magazine for 51 years. The magazine found its greatest niche in providing station executives insight into the inner workings of the federal government vis-à-vis the broadcasting industry. Taishoff's close friendships with many Washington insiders of both political parties scored the magazine's most notable scoops. The collection contains mostly business correspondence and financial information from the latter part of Taishoff's career.
This collection is open to the public and must be used in the Special Collections reading room. Researchers must register and agree to copyright and privacy laws before using this collection.
Series 3: Financial Records contains restricted material. Please check the series and folder listings for additional information.
Photocopies or digital surrogates may be provided in accordance with Special Collections and University Archives duplication policy.
Copyright resides with the creators of the documents or their heirs unless otherwise specified. It is the researcher's responsibility to secure permission to publish materials from the appropriate copyright holder.
Archival materials may contain materials with sensitive or confidential information that is protected under federal and/or state right to privacy laws or other regulations. While we make a good faith effort to identify and remove such materials, some may be missed during our processing. If a researcher finds sensitive personal information in a collection, please bring it to the attention of the special collections reading room staff.
80.17 Linear Feet
12 Sound Cassettes : Compact cassettes
2 Tape Reels : Open reel audio ; 1/4"
The Papers of Sol Taishoff contain mostly business correspondence and financial information from the latter part of Taishoff's career at Broadcasting. Also included in the collection are personal letters, information relating to the professional activities of Taishoff (meetings, awards banquets, speeches, etc.), some items found on his desk when he died, and a small accumulation of books, magazines, pamphlets, photographs, awards, and other objects from his office.
Virtually all of the material in the collection dates from the last two decades of Taishoff's life (circa 1962 –1982), with the vast majority of it dating from the last twelve years of his life. By this point, Taishoff had settled into a comfortable semi-retirement and, with the exception of the editorial department of Broadcasting, was involved less and less with the day-to-day operation of his business. There is very little information in his papers about his early life and career or the founding and day-to-day decision making at Broadcasting magazine.
Sol Joseph Taishoff (1904-1982) was editor and co-founder of Broadcasting, a weekly business magazine covering radio, television, cable television, satellite distribution, and related fields. He was a fellow of the Society of Professional Journalists, and in 1953 he was the first journalist from a business publication to receive the University of Missouri's honor award for distinguished journalism. He received the National Association of Broadcasters Distinguished Service Award in 1966.
Taishoff was born in Minsk in Czarist Russia. His family immigrated to the United States before he was three years old. He dropped out of high school at 16 to become a night-shift copy boy for the Associated Press. After leaving the Associated Press in 1926, Taishoff joined the original staff of the United States Daily, which became U.S. News and World Report.
With radio columnist Martin Codel, Taishoff started publishing Broadcasting magazine in 1931. He bought out Codel in 1944 and remained active as editor and chairman of the board of Broadcasting Publications Inc. until the late 1970s. Taishoff was a strong supporter of commercial broadcasting and an advocate for the industry's freedom from government regulation and control.
This collection has been arranged as nine series:
This collection contains audiovisual materials. Items that cannot be used in the Special Collections reading room or are too fragile for researchers require that a digital copy be made prior to use. If you would like to access these materials, please contact us prior to your visit.
Lawrence Taishoff donated his father Sol Taishoff's papers to the University of Maryland's Library of American Broadcasting in June 1997.
The materials in this collection have been minimally processed. The files in this collection came to the Libraries in no discernible order. The processing archivists arranged the files into the current series. Unless otherwise noted at the series level, materials within a series are not arranged in any particular order.
Materials were placed in acid-free folders and labeled. Staples and paper clips were removed and replaced with plastic clips. Materials were re-boxed in archival storage boxes.
Books unrelated to broadcasting were returned to Sol Taishoff’s son, Larry. Books relating to broadcasting, issues of Broadcasting magazine, and Broadcasting Yearbooks were removed from the collection and cataloged into the book collection.
The audio tapes in Series 9 were separated from the collection and are stored with the LAB audio collection.
Part of the Special Collections and University Archives