The Helen Faith Keane collection
Collection
0003-MMC-LAB
Helen Faith Keane (1901-2011) hosted a TV program, The Helen Faith Keane Show… For Your Information, during 1951. The program, which was aimed toward women, dealt with everything "from how to play the piano to what to ask your doctor about breast cancer." It aired for one year over New York's WABD-TV, the now-defunct Dumont network's flagship station. Keane won McCall's Golden Mike Award for her program in 1951.
The collection documents Keane's television program and contains correspondence, artifacts, promotional items, and photographs.
There are no restricted files in this collection.
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 reading room staff.
1.50 Linear Feet
English
The Helen Faith Keane Collection is quite small and encompasses only the year 1951, the time in which Keane helmed her own WABD-TV program "The Helen Faith Keane Show. . .For Your Information." The types of materials include correspondence, promotional items, photographs, awards and artifacts.
Helen Faith Keane Reichert (1901-2011 ) is an American broadcaster who helmed her own TV series over the Dumont TV network in the early 1950s.
The daughter of Polish immigrants, Keane (often referred to by her nickname "Happy") attended Cornell University, where she was a member of the women's rowing team and from which she would graduate Phi Beta Kappa with a degree in English in 1925. She would later earn an MA in psychology from Columbia University.
Before she pursued broadcasting, Helen Faith Keane excelled in various fields. Her first job -- at $18 a week -- was as a copywriter for Bloomingdale's. She would stay with the store for six years, eventually being promoted to the position of Fashion Coordinator. After Bloomingdale's, Keane took a job with Montgomery Ward to work as fashion coordinator for their catalog and retail stores. She was employed by Montgomery Ward for five years.
Just after WWII, while still working day shifts at Montgomery Ward, Keane began to work as a teacher, teaching night courses in fashion advertising at New York University. She would eventually join the faculty of NYU in their school of retailing, teaching first part time (1946-1952) and then full time (1952-1977).
It was during her tenure with Montgomery Ward and NYU that Keane entered broadcasting. After watching a daytime televised fashion show, Keane was displeased with the male commentator and called the station the next day to complain about it. Eventually, she was hired to host her own daily TV talk show.
"The Helen Faith Keane Show...For Your Information" aired for exactly one year over WABD, a Dumont-owned station. Aimed at women, the program covered for its audience everything "from how to play the piano to what to ask your doctor about breast cancer." Said Keane about her program, "The ladies would write me with their questions and, when I received sufficient interest in a particular topic, I would seek an expert who could address it."
"The Helen Faith Keane Show...For Your Information" won a McCall's Mike award in 1951. One of that year's judges, Margaret Chase Smith, said about the program, "the material was inspiring evidence of what women can do, and are doing, for our country and our people."
In order to devote more time to her teaching at NYU and to have more time to travel, Keane ended her broadcasting career exactly one year after it began.
Keane has been married only once, to the late Dr. Philip Reichert. Reichert was also a graduate of Cornell (class of 1923). The couple had no children.
Keane died on September 25, 2011, at the age of 109 in New York City.
This collection has six series.
The Helen Faith Keane Collection was donated to the Library of American Broadcasting, University of Maryland Libraries, by Helen Faith Keane Reichert in May of 1997.
Part of the Special Collections and University Archives