The Faye Emerson Show

A white woman sits at a table and gazes into the distance slightly above and beyond the camera with a soft, pleasant expression as though she is recalling a fond memory. She wears a black dress with a deep v-neck, and her light hair is elegantly pulled back. Her sparkling necklace and elaborate earrings appear to drip off her person like icicles, and she holds a pencil in her right hand while her left hand touches a paper list in front of her on the table.

While largely forgotten today, Faye Emerson, host of The Faye Emerson Show (CBS, 1949–1951), once dominated the media conversation as “the First Lady of Television” with her informed and engaging on-air political discourse. Through preservation, revival, and mining of Emerson’s archives, including the repair of key kinescopes, this article reinvigorates Emerson’s radical contributions through her show’s socially respon- sible on-air political and feminist discourse and audience-viewer interaction, the imprint of which remains in late-night television today.

– Dr. Maureen Mauk, “Politics Is Everybody’s Business: Resurrecting Faye Emerson, America’s Forgotten First Lady of Television,” Journal of Cinema and Media Studies 59, no. 4 (Summer 2020): 129–152, https://doi.org/10.1353/cj.2020.0044.

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