Museum of Broadcast Communications
museum
The Museum of Broadcast Communications (MBC) is a nonprofit institution in Chicago, Illinois, devoted to collecting, preserving, and exhibiting historic and contemporary radio and television content. It provides education through its archives, exhibits, programs, screenings, publications, and online resources.
Museum locations
Founding (1982-'87)
The museum was proposed in 1982 by Chicago journalist and broadcaster Bruce DuMont, nephew of Allen B. DuMont, founder of the DuMont Television Network. The Chicago Chapter of the National Academy of Television Arts and Sciences made a research-and-development contribution to help launch the initiative that year. It was chartered as a nonprofit in October 1983.
By January 1986 the planned museum had received a donation of more than 42,000 hours of vintage radio programming from Chicago radio host Chuck Schaden, formerly of news/talk WIND-AM, who had presented Those Were the Days on classical station WNIB-FM for nine years and had been hosting Radio Classics on WBBM-AM since December 1985. Executive director Beverly Kennedy said the staff was still scouting for a location and hoped to open within 18 months. Schaden's collection and the museum's own radio archive were to be presented in two of six planned "decade rooms", each furnished as a living room of a particular decade from the 1930s to the 1980s and equipped with period radios and televisions. Programming was to include recordings of Jack Benny, Edgar Bergen and Charlie McCarthy, The Lone Ranger, Red Skelton and Orson Welles, with a particular focus on network shows that had originated in Illinois and on Midwestern performers, producers, writers and broadcasters. Kennedy said the museum would ideally be housed in a facility of 20,000 to 22,000 square feet and that the project as a whole was likely to cost a seven-figure sum.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Museum of Broadcast Communications” is museum. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Museum, Broadcast and Communications, not as a finished interpretation.
Why this record matters
The phrase “museum” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
Place names and jurisdictional language are key evidence: both can reveal earlier catalogue descriptions and overlooked record series. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 4, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q840284. VIAF identifies the subject as 135245065. The Library of Congress control number is no97063326. Authority coordinates are 41.889, -87.628. 5 of 5 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1982, 1983, 1986 and 1985.
Modern boundaries and familiar names can conceal earlier jurisdictions or structures that do not align with the present site. The source lead contains qualifying language; that uncertainty should survive quotation, summary and reuse. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
How to read it
Treat names, boundaries and functions as historically changeable. Maps, plans, inventories and administrative records can clarify what the place meant at different dates.
- Historic place names
- Jurisdictional context
- Routes into maps and plans
Contemporary maps, plans, listed-building records, estate papers and the responsible local or national archive.
Three-step research path
- Establish the record: confirm the title “Museum of Broadcast Communications”, its source revision and the description used here.
- Expand the search: follow Museum of Broadcast Communications primary sources, Museum of Broadcast Communications archive and Museum research across catalogues and specialist indexes.
- Test the account: compare the strongest cited source with the responsible institution’s current record and note any disagreement.
Questions for further research
- Which source most directly establishes the central claim about “Museum of Broadcast Communications”?
- Which earlier names or jurisdictions may reveal additional records?
- Which authority defined the place, boundary or structure at the relevant date?
Search terms from this dossier
This entry incorporates text from “Museum of Broadcast Communications” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.