Developing research questions
Despite the obvious care and attention given to the early television collections, it would be difficult to contend that a certain kind of neglect did not also play a role—and a quite generative one—throughout the process of reviving these programs and collections. Even if the collections were not neglected by archivists, they had been under-utilized by scholars.
Fortunately, then-Ph.D. students Dr. Maureen Mauk and Olivia Riley formulated original research questions exploring 1950s television programs that were not well remembered in broadcasting history. This resulted in them publishing articles and blog posts that shared new knowledge and put the past and present together in exciting ways. But it also resulted in our decision at the WCFTR to invest resources into scanning the collections and investigating their rights statuses.
