| Abstract | This project follows the beginning years of the prison radio show, Thirty Minutes Behind the Walls. The show originated in Texas and aired mainly out of the Huntsville Unit from 1938 to the late 1950s. Through an analysis of the available transcripts and the recordings taken by the father-and-son duo, Alan and John Lomax, I address the show's current historiography. I argue that the existing scholarship takes an unfairly presentist interpretation and cheats the show out of what I further argue is a pioneering in authentically diversified casting and performance. Given its existence in the midst of Jim Crow Texas, there are expected and realized shortcomings. I carefully avoid the anachronistic judgments made on the show by its two major accounts, and instead approach it on its own terms. |
