NOTES
- For example, see Mary Ellen Donovan, “Il Duce's Former Translator: Vocal Feminist and Christian.” Valley News (Woodstock, Vt.), 1979, in the Lisa Sergio papers, box 14, folder 19, Georgetown University Library, Washington, D.C.; Hazel Geissler, “Early Women Broadcasters Reunite,” St. Petersburg Independent, March 5, 1974; Lisa Sergio, “Brains Have No Sex,” New York Times, April 25, 1943; and Lisa Sergio, “Columbia Broadcasting System, Columbia's Lecture Hall,” April 28, 1941, Lisa Sergio papers, box 11, folder 71, Georgetown University Library. It is difficult to determine if Sergio was Europe's first female announcer when she began broadcasting in 1932, but an examination of newspaper clippings shows that by 1933, a number of networks began to employ women after hearing a woman broadcasting from Rome. See Stacy Spaulding, “Lisa Sergio: How Mussolini's ‘Golden Voice’ of Propaganda Created an American Mass Communication Career” (Ph.D. diss., University of Maryland, 2005).
- Lisa Sergio, “Chapter VI: Unplanned Encounter with Mussolini,” 1, Lisa Sergio papers, box 5, folder 26, Georgetown University Library.
- Gay Levinson, “Interpreter Protested War: Linquist [sic] Switched Mussolini Scripts,” Fort Lauderdale News, March 14, 1972. The word “Linquist” should have been “Linguist.”
- See “A Guest of NBC; Famous European Announcer to Broadcast Here,” Broadcasting, Aug. 1, 1937, 21; George Dangerfield, “They Talk to the World,” Harper's Bazaar, November 1937; and NBC, “Sergio, Lisa,” NBC radio personalities card catalog, 1938, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C.
- Stacy Spaulding, “Lisa Sergio's ‘Column of the Air’: An Examination of the Gendered History of Radio (1940–1945),” American Journalism 22 (Winter 2005): 35–60.
- For example, see Philip V. Cannistraro, “The Organization of Totalitarian Culture: Cultural Policy and the Mass Media in Fascist Italy, 1922–1945” (Ph.D. diss, New York University, 1971); Philip V. Cannistraro, “The Radio in Fascist Italy,” Journal of European Studies 2 (1972): 127–54; and Walter B. Emery, National and International Systems of Broadcasting: Their History, Operation and Control (East Lansing: Michigan State University Press, 1969).
- Lisa Sergio, “The Dream Was Veiled in Blue,” 91, Lisa Sergio papers, box 8, folder 26, Georgetown University Library.
- Ibid., 90.
- Ibid., 146.
- Dates of their first encounter vary in Sergio's writings. For example, she wrote that they met at a reception at the Italian embassy in London in 1923 or 1929 or later in Rome in 1932. See Lisa Sergio, “Chapter IV: Breaking the Rules,” 146, Lisa Sergio papers, box 5, folder 26; Lisa Sergio, “Guglielmo Marconi: The Silent Man Who Made the Ether Speak,” 1, Lisa Sergio papers, box 7, folder 40; and Lisa Sergio, Gente translation, 3, Lisa Sergio papers, box 5, folder 26. All are at the Georgetown University Library.
- Lisa Sergio, “Chapter VI: Unplanned Encounter with Mussolini,” 1.
- See ibid.; and Sergio, Gente translation, 6.
- Interview of Lisa Sergio by an unknown interviewer, circa 1986, Lisa Sergio papers, tape 11, box 16, folder 2, Georgetown University Library.
- Sergio, Gente translation, 6.
- Cannistraro, “The Organization of Totalitarian Culture,” 175–76.
- Lisa Sergio, From Intervention to Empire: A Book of Fascist Dates (Rome: Novissima, 1937), 163.
- “Italy's Radio Progress,” Nottingham (England) News, Jan. 23, 1934.
- See A.R. Burrows, “World Radio Population over 176,000,000,” Broadcasting, April 15, 1934, 13.
- “Propaganda By Radio, Italian Activity Increasing,” The Times of London, Sept. 21, 1935.
- Sergio, “Chapter VI: Unplanned Encounter with Mussolini,” 1.
- For example, see William Bird, “American Girl Is 2RO Voice: Lisa Sergio Will Be Heard from Rome Soon,” New York Sun, September 1932, Lisa Sergio papers, box 19, folder 1, Georgetown University Library.
- “Romance Loses Out, Sophisticated Topic Preferred by WQXR Listeners,” New York Sun, May 27, 1939.
- “Italy's Radio Progress.”
- “Italian Woman Announcer,” Daily Telegraph, Oct. 10, 1935.
- Lisa Sergio, “It Was a Day So Long Ago,” 6, Lisa Sergio papers, box 5, folder 28, Georgetown University Library.
- This is a reference to famous Italian actress Eleonora Duse (1858–1924), who also was known simply as Duse.
- Genet [Janet Flanner], “Paris Letter,” New Yorker, Oct. 28, 1936.
- “B.B.C. Diction in Rome,” Daily Telegraph, 1935, Lisa Sergio papers, box 19, folder 1, Georgetown University Library.
- Stephen Clissold, “The War on the Air,” The Spectator, Nov. 29, 1935.
- L. Marsland Gander, “England Has an Ear to the Air,” New York Times, Oct. 20, 1935.
- Ibid.
- Asa Briggs, The BBC: The First Fifty Years (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1985), 141–42.
- Lisa Sergio, “To the members of the International DX'rs Alliance,” Feb. 21, 1936, 1, Lisa Sergio papers, box 11, folder 76, Georgetown University Library.
- Lisa Sergio, “Fading Dell'Inno A Roma,” 1935, Lisa Sergio papers, box 11, folder 73, Georgetown University Library.
- “The Magic Key of RCA,” radio broadcast, March 8, 1936, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress.
- Lisa Sergio, “One Day, When I Was Frantically Busy…” 2, Lisa Sergio papers, box 5, folder 27, University Library.
- NBC radio broadcast of speech by Benito Mussolini, Nov. 1, 1936, Lisa Sergio papers, box 17, folder 8, Georgetown University Library.
- These scarves are in the Lisa Sergio papers, box 16, folder 11, Georgetown University Library. She brought these scarves from Italy, according to a 1941 letter to the FBI from a woman who sailed on the same ocean liner with her. “Always admiration of Il Duce was loudly proclaimed, and especially by this Sergio, who also called attention to a sport handkerchief she was carrying, whereon was printed a speech made by Mussolini. She mentioned that she had other handkerchiefs with other Mussolini speeches printed on them.” See J. Edgar Hoover to Special Agent in Charge, New York, Feb. 19, 1941, file 65–18966, Federal Bureau of Investigation, Washington, D.C.
- Lisa Sergio, “The Duce's Message for the Constitution of the Empire,” translation of speech given by Benito Mussolini on May 9, 1936, from Rome, Lisa Sergio papers, box 11, folder 75, Georgetown University Library. Also in the folder is a document in Italian, carrying the stamp of the Ministry of Press and Propaganda, ordering her to appear “for the transmission of radio news in the English language” and another document offering Mussolini's congratulations and high praise to the ministry for the broadcast.
- Lisa Sergio, “Speech Delivered by Signor Mussolini at Milan on Nov, 1, 1936,” 3, Lisa Sergio papers, box 11, folder 74, Georgetown University Library.
- Lisa Sergio, “There Was a Time When Even the Moon Befriended Mussolini,” 6, Lisa Sergio papers, box 5, folder 28, Georgetown University Library.
- Sergio, Gente translation, 16–17.
- Sergio, “There Was a Time When Even the Moon Befriended Mussolini,” 4.
- Sergio, “It Was a Day So Long Ago,” 9.
- Sergio, “There Was a Time When Even the Moon Befriended Mussolini,” 4.
- Sergio, Gente translation, 9–10.
- Ray Moseley, Mussolini's Shadow: The Double Life of Count Galeazzo Ciano (New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 1999), 16.
- Ibid., 13.
- Sergio, Gente translation, 10, 17–18.
- Ibid., 12–13.
- Interview with Lisa Sergio by an unknown interviewer, circa 1986, Lisa Sergio papers, tape 7, box 16, folder 2, Georgetown University.
- Sergio, Gente translation, 20.
- Lisa Sergio, “Your Eyes Are Like Your Father's,” 5, Lisa Sergio papers, box 5, folder 25, Georgetown University Library.
- In May 1937, she interviewed Marconi for the Hearst syndicate on the subject of a death ray, which he had allegedly discovered and tested. The San Francisco Examiner and the New York American published the story on May 17, 1937.
- Sergio, “Your Eyes Are Like Your Father's,” 6.
- Sergio, Gente translation, 20–21.
- Sergio, “Your Eyes Are Like Your Father's,” 13, 14.
- “Miss Sergio with ‘Fluent Phonetics’ Points Way for Women Announcers,” New York Times, July 18, 1937.
- See “A Guest of NBC; Famous European Announcer to Broadcast Here;” Dangerfield, “They Talk to the World;” and NBC radio personalities card catalog, 1938, Library of Congress.
- The FBI report on Sergio, dated Aug. 29, 1942, 1, 11, is in file 65–18966, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
- Ibid., 9.
- FBI special agent to Mr. Ladd, “re: The Grove Park Inn Mission,” April 25, 1942, file 65–18966, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
- The FBI report on Sergio, dated Aug. 29, 1942, 10–11, is in file 65–18966, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
- J. Edgar Hoover to Special Agent in Charge, New York, Feb. 19, 1941, file 65–18966, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
- Interview with Lisa Sergio by an unknown interviewer, circa 1986, Lisa Sergio papers, tape 9, box 16, folder 2, Georgetown University.
- Howard McGaw Smyth, Secrets of the Fascist Era: How Uncle Sam Obtained Some of the Top-Level Documents of Mussolini's Period (Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1975), 86–89.
- See the Sept. 12, 1944, report on Sergio, file 65–18966, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
- Ibid., 1–2.
- See the Oct. 23, 1944, report on Sergio's, 2–4, file 65–18966, Federal Bureau of Investigation.
- Ibid. The inscribed Marconi photograph is in the Lisa Sergio papers, box 14, folder 41, Georgetown University Library. The inscription, written in Italian, reads: “To Lisa Sergio, in admiration of her work of Italian propaganda. From Guglielmo Marconi, Rome, June 20 1936.”
- Oct. 23, 1944, report in Sergio's FBI file, 2–5.
- See “A Guest of NBC; Famous European Announcer to Broadcast Here;” NBC Press Release, “Lisa Sergio to Announce Dell Concerts,” 1937, Motion Picture, Broadcasting and Recorded Sound Division, Library of Congress.
- Lisa Sergio, interview by Milton Cross, The Helen Traubel Program, July 18, 1937, Lisa Sergio papers, box 19, folder 2, Georgetown University Library.
- “Duce's Lire for Babies ‘Superfluous’,” New York World-Telegram, July 16, 1937.
- Propaganda Service Director General to Minister of Popular Culture, Nov. 12, 1939, Lisa Sergio papers, box 4, folder 24, Georgetown University Library. It is unknown how a copy of this memorandum came into Sergio's possession.
- William F. Ryan, “Lisa Sergio: The Golden Voice of Rome, The Progressive Complainer in America,” Virginia Country, August 1990. Tucci lived outside Florence as a child and later worked with Sergio in translating Mussolini's speeches into German. He immigrated to the United States in 1938, where he became a known memoirist and New Yorker contributor. He died in 1999 at the age of ninety-one. See Dinita Smith, “Tucci, 91, Author Who Wrote of Childhood, Dies,” New York Times, Dec. 11, 1999.
- Ryan, “Lisa Sergio,” 65.
- Moseley, Mussolini's Shadow, 19, 58.
- Santi Corvaja, Hitler and Mussolini: The Secret Meeting (New York: Enigma Books, 2001), 34.
- Alessandro Moissi to Lisa Sergio, Aug. 8, 1933, Lisa Sergio papers, box 2, folder 16, Georgetown University Library.
- Galeazzo Ciano, Diary 1937–1943 (New York: Enigma Books, 2002).
- Victoria De Grazia, How Fascism Ruled Women (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1992), 166, 193.
- Additionally, such social pressures may have led to a prevalent cultural stereotype of the time: the sexy secretary. “To make ends meet some young women turned to the market of sexual favors. Public opinion alerted wives to the snares of the seductive secretary,” wrote De Grazia. See ibid., 194. Such a stereotype may have been at play in descriptions of Sergio in her FBI file. De Grazia noted that it was well known that in such affairs, the secretary was most likely to suffer. In a 1940 novel, Sogni in Grembiule Nero (Dreams in Black-Frock), one secretary tells another about the “same old story,” a present, a salary increase, a kiss, and a request for overtime. “We all know where it ends up. And it practically happens to everybody, believe me. All of my friends are in the same situation.” See ibid., 195.
- Donovan, “Il Duce's Former Translator: Vocal Feminist and Christian.”
- Interview of Lisa Sergio by unknown interviewer, circa 1986, Lisa Sergio papers, tape 9, box 16, folder 2, Georgetown University.
- Ibid.
- As Sergio faced her “dilemma of 1936,” deciding whether to change her radio scripts, she waltzed with German Ambassador Ulrich von Hassle one night at a reception. He began to talk casually about “the dangers involved in allowing a war to start in Abyssinia and of the responsibility of those who believed in justice and peace, especially if they had a means of reaching the general public,” Sergio wrote. See Sergio, “It Was a Day So Long Ago,” 9. Von Hassle, the ambassador to Italy from 1932 to 1938, was hanged in 1944 for his involvement in a conspiracy to overthrow Hitler.
- Sergio, “Your Eyes Are Like Your Father's,” 7–13.
- Lisa Sergio to Peter J. Donohue, Jan. 2, 1942, Lisa Sergio papers, box 4, folder 1, Georgetown University Library.
- James D. Startt and Wm. David Sloan, Historical Methods in Mass Communication (Northport, Ala.: Vision Press, 2003), 206.
- Sidonie Smith and Julia Watson, Reading Autobiography (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2001), 11, 27, 47.
- Leigh Gilmore, Autobiographies (Ithaca, N.Y.: Cornell University Press, 1994), ix.
- Ibid., 125, 143.
- Smith and Watson, Reading Autobiography, 128.
- Ibid., 11, 125.
- Startt and Sloan, Historical Methods in Mass Communication, 198–202.
- Marc Bloch, The Hostorian's Craft (New York: Vintage Books, 1953), 143.
- Roslyn Pesman, “Italian Women and Work in Post-Second World War Australia,” in Donna Gabaccia and Franca Iacovetta, eds., Women, Gender and Transnational Lives: Italian Workers of the World (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2002), 402–03.
- Shulamit Reinharz, Feminist Methods in Social Research (New York: Oxford University Press, 1992), 138–39.
- Fiora A. Bassanese, “Sibilla Aleramo: Writing a Personal Myth” in Robin Pickering-Iazzi, ed., Mothers of Invention: Women, Italian Fascism and Culture (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1995), 137.
- Ibid., 6.
- Smith and Watson, Reading Autobiography, 42.
- Gilmore, Autobiographics, 20.
- During this time (1962 to 1989), Sergio did read a weekly Sunday morning radio program on WMAL of poems and prayers produced in association with the Council of Churches of Greater Washington.
- Elizabeth Wingrove, “Interpellating Sex,” Signs 24 (Summer 1999): 869–893.
- Helen Buss, Repossessing the World: Reading Memoirs by Contemporary Women (Waterloo: Wilfrid Laurier University Press, 2002), xv.