After I posted a piece on the midwest radio seedsmen I found these photos on Ebay which prompted me to look around to find more on Mr. May. The article below from the Iowa Journal of History- 1944, covers it nicely. The radio station was the heart of a large social community whose influence made many isolated farm peoples days more socially connected, but also changed lives through outreach to shut-ins and the poor.
Was it Henri Matisse who thought he was going to be a lawyer, but changed to art? Mr. May did the same thing.
I admit, this post is more radio and history than seed and history :-)
Like Henry Field's Seed Company, theEarl May Seed Companystarted from a very small beginning. In 1915Earl E. May,a young man who had found the practice of law too dull for his active mind, came to Shenandoah and connected himself with the Mount Arbor Nurseries which were under thedirection of E. S. Welch. Probably he could not have found a better place to get a thorough nursery training and he soon decided that he wanted a seed and nursery business of his own. He was not long in organizing the company which now bears his name.
Twenty-five years ago, on January 1,1919, Mr. May took over the old Armstrong Seedhouse with the design of starting a seed, nursery, and landscaping business. He could hire only two people for his office staff, and together they spent many toilsome hours preparing catalogues, writing letters and soliciting potential customers. Today Mr. May chuckles when he recalls how a large eastern advertising agency in New York laid out the first selling campaign and how they vainly tried to sell seeds to the farmers with clever mottoes, flowery advertising phrases, and many other advertising stunts that were considered very effective in those days.
The growth of the business was gradual. Mr. May often had to depend more on his indomitable courage and faith than on the actual business increases. Almost singlehanded he took care of the business the first few years, filling orders, managing correspondence, and all the time wondering how he was going to pay the bills for the catalogues and advertising. At first it was an uphill fight, but Earl May had courage and ability. The policy of giving service in a prompt, efficient way and supplying only quality nursery stock and seeds gained the company added customers and friends each year, so that the volume of the business grew slowly but steadily.
In 1924, when radio was considered as a hobby, or at best a means of entertainment, Earl May, like Henry Field, realized that it could be used as a means of education and publicity in order to bring to the attention of thousands of people interesting facts about planting and landscaping and the care of ornamental trees, fruits, and flowers. His first programs were presented from Omaha, over WOW. For these early broadcasts Mr. May took talent from Shenandoah to the Omaha studio. Later in 1924 he built a special studio in the May Seed Company building and through the Omaha station transmitted his programs sixty-six miles by wire. The results of these early broadcasts were so gratifying that Mr. May immediately began planning his own station. On August 12,1925, operating at that time on a wave length of 252 meters with a power of five hundred watts, KMA broadcast its initial program.
Earl May's idea of using radio to broadcast useful information as well as entertainment became extremely popular. He created so great an interest in planting and gardening that almost a million names were added to his mailing list, and his nursery and seed business showed a phenomenal increase. While Mr. May gives radio ample credit for making thousands of people planting-conscious, his own personal ability at the microphone proved a tremendous factor. In two years he built up a cooperative spirit of good will by the service program that is well defined by KMA's slogan: "Keep Millions Advised."
Mr. May was soon receiving so many inquiries from customers who desired to purchase various items in addition to seeds and nursery stock, that he decided to include a line of staple foods such as dried fruit, canned fruit, fresh frozen fish, citrus fruit, buying them in carload lots and applying the efficient merchandising methods to this business which had succeeded so well in the seed and nursery business. In those years one reason for the surprising growth of the company was Mr. May's ability to adapt radio as an advertising medium to the peculiar needs of his own business.
Earl May Seed Company Grew from Small Firm to Great Institution in the Earl E. May Seed Company Special Edition of The EveningSentinel (Shenandoah), January 27, 1937.
KMA's first studio consisted of one room on the second floor of the seed building on North Elm Street, Shenandoah. After he had polled over 450,000 votes in the Announcers' Contest, and won the Radio-Digest-Gold-Cup Award for the world's most popular announcer, Earl May decided to build a home for KMA. It was finished in the fall of 1927, and thousands of people came to see the beautiful auditorium called Mayfair. Designed in Moorish architecture, its auditorium seats one thousand people. The studio is in full view from the auditorium, separated from it only by a huge piece of plate glass, eight by twenty-two feet in dimensions, and weighing three tons in its steel frame.
In radio Earl May was a leader, not a follower, and many of today's common practices of radio were in use at an early day in his programs at Shenandoah. For example, the now popular audience-participation type of radio program was developed by him back in 1926 and 1927 at a time when most broadcasters were trying to keep people out of the studios. Early morning broadcasts were unheard of until he inaugurated the first regular program of its kind on October 30,1925. A program which started at five-thirty in the morning achieved a success that surprised everyone but Mr.May. Regular news broadcasts from press wires were instituted by him in 1928.8
In contrast with most broadcasters of the day, Earl May developed the informal style of radio program, inviting the opinions of the listeners and making his broadcasts serve as a "clearing house" for ideas and problems. With his unusual radio voice and his ability to describe in an interesting manner, he started to give word pictures of agricultural conditions, methods, and people which the audience present and those "listening in" can understand.
Article continues after images...
He even got an advertiser to help defray the cost of this pamphlet! Good businessman.
Up to 1930, about ninety per cent of the Earl E. May Seed Company business was mail order, but improved highways made it possible for more and more people to drive into towns to do their shopping in person, so as an experiment an Earl May Store was established in Lincoln, Nebraska. The success of the new store was immediate, and now twenty-five to thirty Earl May nursery and seed stores are located in various towns and cities throughout Iowa, Nebraska, and Missouri. Thousands of tons of merchandise, seeds, and nursery stock are shipped every season to these Earl May stores.
From a volume of a few thousand dollars in 1919 and 1920, the business has grown to a present day volume of about two million dollars. At the height of the season, the Earl E. May Seed Company employs approximately five hundred people. The quantity of merchandise distributed through this organization reaches staggering figures. For example, the sale of oranges and grape fruit runs between sixty and eighty cars per season. About three million baby chicks are sold each spring.
KMA has also grown and developed. It is now a corporation in its own right, doing business as the May Broadcasting Company. It is affiliated with the Blue Network, Inc., and with the Mutual Broadcasting System. It operates full time, on a frequency of 960 kilocycles, with 5000 watts day and night time power. New RCA equipment was installed in the summer of 1936, insuring the highest perfection in tone, quality, and clear reception. KMA's 488 foot tower was the highest self-supporting structure in the State of Iowa at the time of its erection in 1936. The control station is housed in a two-story white frame building located north of Shenandoah on highway number fortyeight. A full-sized basement under the house supplies space for an air conditioning plant, garage, and heating unit.
» The Evening Sentinel (Shenandoah), January 27, 1987.
Living quarters of the engineer are located on the top floor, while the main floor houses the modern broadcasting equipment. The programs originate in the studio at the downtown auditorium at the main building of the Earl E. May Seed and Nursery Company. The new control station and transmitter house were built at a cost of $83,356.00. Expenses of the radio department average between $9,000 and $10,000 monthly. Radio, as an advertising medium, is undoubtedly here to stay, and the phenomenal growth of the Earl E. May Seed Company furnishes one example.10
Each year Earl May features the KMA Radio Jubilee. The idea was born on October 30, 1925, on the occasion of KMA's Australian "DX program". Plans had been laid in advance for a continuous thirty-six hour broadcast featuring special talent and entertainment, and in the wee small hours, special portions of the program were dedicated to far distant points such as Australia, New Zealand, and Alaska, Listener-interest was aroused to the extent that several hundred people crowded the studios and the adjoining offices to see the entertainers and learn just how broadcasting was handled. Refreshments were arranged for the entertaining and radio staff, but many of the listeners who had come from some distance were invited to join in and visit with Mr. May and all the personnel. The next year, plans were made to serve pancakes to all the visitors through the cooperation of the Doud Milling Company of Denison, Iowa. In this way a new feature was introduced.
The name "Radio Jubilee" was coined that year and special entertainment features were added including games, contests, and special prizes for the radio visitors from the most distant points. In 1928 close to 100,000 visitors swarmed into the studio, auditorium, offices, tents, and temporary space reserved for the occasion. For the refreshment of guests 138,624 pancakes were served in a tent across the street from the Mayfair Studio. Nine hundred pounds of sugar and 308 gallons of cream were required for the coffee to go with the pancakes and 611 pounds of butter and 500 gallons of syrup were used on the pancakes. In addition, 2490 pounds of bacon, 1475 pounds of prunes, and 1000 packages of cereal were served.
io "KMA's New Station Makes It One of Best in Middle west" in The Evening Sentinel (Shenandoah), January 27, 1987.
This gives an idea of the magnitude of the task when one tries to feed 100,000 people in four or five days. In the thirties the Horticultural and Vegetable Show was added as a special feature of the Radio Jubilee and this has since come to be one of the outstanding shows of its kind in the Farm Belt. Comments have been made by judges, some of them from Iowa State College at Ames, that the exhibits at this show rival those of the State Fair in quality as well as quantity.
Station KFNF occasionally has its jubilee week at the same time as KMA, during which it, too, has special entertainment features and serves "hot dogs" and coffee to thousands of visitors. Other communities have their carnivals, their rodeos, and their celebrations, but Shenandoah has its Radio Jubilee, an institution thoroughly in keeping with its slogan "The Radio City" of Iowa, which speaks far and wide the reputation of Shenandoah as a trade center.
Besides developing their own commercial interest the stations also serve the public in many ways. For example, in welfare work KMA not only maintains a welfare program director, but performs a consistent year-around service. One of the staff provides daily programs for shut-ins and underprivileged listeners. In the years in which Mrs. Edythe Stirlen has held this post, she has built up an organization of thousands of charitable persons who aid her in this work of brightening the hours of shut-ins. These persons have joined the SOS (Send Out Sunshine) Clubs and contribute time, work, or money to enable Mrs. Stirlen to provide wheel chairs, radios, spectacles, clothing, and other items to worthy cases. In 1940, for example, she gave away 10 wheel chairs, 200 radio sets, 15 radio batteries, 10 pairs of spectacles, 8 typewriters, 3 hospital beds, 6 pairs of blankets, and 500 baby chicks.12
KMA's Annual Radio Jubilees Inaugurated October 30, 1935, in The Evening Sentinel
(Shenandoah), January 27, 1937.
In addition, quantities of garden seeds, heating pads, Bibles, clothing, and furniture were supplied. These SOS clubs, with a membership of 2500, are active in Omaha and Lincoln, Nebraska, Topeka, Kansas, St. Joseph, Missouri, Marshalltown and Ottumwa, Iowa, Rush City, Minnesota, and other middlewestern cities. The SOS Signal is published in connection with the clubs; this is a monthly magazine which has a regular circulation of one thousand copies.
The stations have also done much to bring about cultural development in the Middle West. Because of them Shenandoah has become garden-conscious and boasts of an unusual number of fine lawns and gardens. The whole town works towards the annual spring flower show in which the townspeople and the stations enter lavish exhibits including peonies, iris, roses, shrubs, and house plants which attract huge crowds from the surrounding States.
The two stations carry many news broadcasts, religious services, educational and home economics programs, market and service reports; and devote much time to humanitarian campaigns, such as the Red Cross, 4-H Clubs, Boy Scouts, and public school affairs. Among some of the prominent speakers have been Henry Wallace, James Farley, Governors of nearly all the midwestern States, and Billy Sunday. All the programs of both stations are arranged for the people of the Middle West and are designed to bring them not only the necessary information concerning their farms and gardens but also the type of entertainment they will most enjoy.
Marjorie Ross Heise
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