Dr. Herman S. Hettinger papers
Collection
0029-MMC-LAB
Herman S. Hettinger was an executive, legal advisor, academic and author, whose long and varied career frequently brought him into the business of radio broadcasting. The collection documents Hettinger's legal advising work in two cases.
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0.50 Linear Feet
English
The papers of Herman S. Hettinger span the years 1941 to 1956, with the bulk of the material dating from 1950 to 1956. The collection contains correspondence, memoranda, legal papers, handwritten notes, and tables and charts relating to broadcast revenue for radio stations.
Herman S. Hettinger (1902-1972) was an American executive, legal advisor, academic, and author who had a long and varied career that frequently brought him into the business of radio broadcasting. Hettinger received a doctorate in economics from the University of Pennsylvania in 1933 and taught there for twelve years. He was chairman of the Wharton School's marketing department from 1940-1942. Hettinger made one of the nation's first radio listener studies in Philadelphia in 1928. He was active in listener research studies, serving as the first research director of the National Association of Broadcasters, 1934-35 and represented the Association on the Technical Subcommittee of the Joint Committee on Radio Research, 1936-1938. Between 1934 and 1950, Dr. Hettinger served as economic consultant to CBS, NBC and various station groups such as the Newspaper-Radio Committee, and individual stations. He was a special consultant to the broadcasting section of the Census of Business, 1935, and to the Federal Communications Commission, 1936-1937.
During World War II, Hettinger was deputy director of the Office of War Information's Domestic Branch. From 1944-48, he was an executive with the Crowell-Collier Publishing Corporation and later he was an associate director of research and economics for McCann-Erickson, Inc., advertising agency.
Dr. Hettinger published extensively on the economics of broadcasting. In 1933, he completed the first study of broadcasting economics, published by the University of Chicago Press, entitled A Decade of Radio Advertising. He also wrote Practical Radio Advertising published by Prentice-Hall in 1938. He edited two issues of the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science regarding broadcasting, 1935 and 1940. He also contributed to such professional journals as Harvard Business Review, Air Law Review, Chicago Journal of Business, and the Journal of Marketing of the American Marketing Association.
Active in the English Speaking Union, Hettinger was a member of the Lawyers Club and of the Players. After 1951 Dr. Hettinger was president of D.M.S. Hegarty & Associates, Inc. Dr. Hettinger died in 1972 at the age of 70.
This collection is arranged in one series:
The Herman S. Hettinger Papers were donated by Helen Hettinger to the Library of American Broadcasting in 1984. The papers were transferred to the University of Maryland Libraries as part of the Library of American Broadcasting in September 1994.
Part of the Special Collections and University Archives