Harold Engel

Photo from UW Madison Library Archives

Class of 1925: Broadcasting pioneer

Expanding educational and political discourse opportunities across the state of Wisconsin was a mission embraced by Harold Engel, Class of 1925, a broadcasting pioneer during the formative years of radio and television.

He promoted the concept of using radio for social good.

Born in Sun Prairie, Wisconsin, June 25, 1903, Engel majored in economics and educational studies at Ripon College and earned a master’s degree in economics from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. For 37 years, from 1931-68, he served at WHA radio and television, one of the oldest stations in the United States, and the University of Wisconsin-Madison.

He first produced a children’s safety program. Then, in 1933, he conceived and developed “Wisconsin College of the Air” and “Wisconsin School of the Air,” which offered educational opportunities to listeners in even the most remote regions of the state. In the mid-1930s, he created The Political Education Forum, which provided free, equal time on air to candidates for state office.

From 1946-57, he guided the building of Wisconsin’s public broadcasting FM network, expanded the station’s facilities and worked on legislative lobbying with the state and the Federal Communications Commission. He served as a consultant about educational program development in other states and as a Fulbright Scholar to the Philippines; and was a professor of radio and television education at UW-Madison.

He advocated extensively about the necessity for university stations to be independent and nonprofit: “In radio, we find the most potent device ever conceived for influencing human minds and actions. Uncontrolled, it could wreck the morale of the nation. Judicially handled, it could raise the level of American life to a plane never before attained. To place such a giant power solely in the custody of those whose primary interest is in its pecuniary earning power is folly.”

Engel died Nov. 18, 1985, at age 82.