Scope and Content Note
The papers of Dan Golenpaul (1901-1974) span the years 1934-1981, with the bulk of material dated 1934-1977. The collection includes correspondence, writings, scripts, contracts, clippings, and guest lists relating particularly to the "Information Please" program produced by Golenpaul on radio and television and to his subsequent publication, Information Please Almanac. Material relating to other radio and publishing ventures include correspondence, scripts, clippings, and notes for "The Education of Hyman Kaplan," "Raising Your Parents," "Magazine of the Air," and The First Years in College. Correspondence is arranged alphabetically. Radio show correspondents include "Information Please" performers Clifton Fadiman and John Kieran and other writers or entertainers such as the Marx brothers, Chico, Harpo, and Groucho. Much of the Information Please Almanac correspondence is with political figures, especially with Democrats in the 1960s and early 1970s, such as Hubert H. Humphrey, Edward M. Kennedy, and Edmund S. Muskie. Golenpaul solicited essays for the almanac from international political figures and social commentators, including Léon Blum, Gunnar Myrdal, and George Bernard Shaw, along with Americans such as Bernard Baruch, Eleanor Roosevelt, and Earl Warren. Also included in the papers are essays by Keyes Beech, Edward M. Kennedy, Leon H. Keyserling, and Archibald MacLeish.