Mark Olds Papers

Mark Olds was a program director and general manager of several radio stations. He received a B.A. from Brooklyn College in 1941. He served in the U.S. Army Signal Corps in the European theater from 1942 to 1946, attaining the rank of captain. He began his commercial radio career as an announcer. He first moved into a management role at KYW, Philadelphia. Olds was the longtime general manager of WWRL in New York, a prominent station catering to a primarily black audience. The Mark Olds Collection covers the years 1930 to 2009, with the bulk of the collection from 1968 to 1977. The collection documents Olds's work as a program director and general manager of various radio stations, but particularly WWRL. Materials in the collection include WWRL working documents, letters to the station, and anti-WWRL publications. The collection contains many materials, including clippings from some rare publications, on the subject of black radio in general. The collection also holds many clippings on the topics of payola and obscenity. Other notable papers include materials collected at WMAQ about pronunciation and an excerpt from Olds's unpublished memoir. A large quantity of audio tapes contain various productions from stations at which Olds worked.