WLRH Special Collection
Collection Summary
This collection is made up of more than 270 arts and informational programs produced at public radio station WLRH in Huntsville, Alabama, between 1986 and 2022. Nearly 150 programs present stories told by Kathryn Tucker Windham, a native Alabamian storyteller, author, photographer, folklorist, and journalist. Windham’s stories include regional ghost stories, descriptions of twentieth-century southern life, and examinations of historic Alabama locations. Many of these stories were broadcast as part of WLRH’s show The Sundial Writer’s Corner.
The collection also includes The Hard Part, a series of nine interviews and discussions pertaining to the June 2020 civil rights protests and police response to these protests in downtown Huntsville; the radio documentary One Giant Leap, exploring integration at NASA in the 1960s, along with interviews about NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, founded in 1960, where the controversial former Nazi aerospace engineer Wernher von Braun served as director; and a series of “Audio Postcards” that provide snapshots into Huntsville’s music and performing arts culture.
Collection Background
WLRH is a non-commercial public radio station located in Huntsville, Alabama that transmits to north central Alabama and south central Tennessee. It was launched on October 13, 1976, and was Alabama’s first full-service public radio station. WLRH’s primary mission is to support education, the arts, and community service in the Tennessee Valley. It is licensed to the Alabama Educational Television Commission and is an affiliate for programming from Public Radio International, American Public Media and National Public Radio. WLRH broadcasts three HD channels, providing a 24-hour classical music service as well as news, talk, and variety programming. The collection was digitized in 2022-2023 by Sara Kaparos, EBSCO fellow, in a collaboration between AAPB and the University of Alabama’s School of Library and Information Studies.
