Undoubtedly readers of the Annotations blog have been waiting with bated breath for the next installment of the Archives Mixtape, and we are happy to oblige with a double feature!

During the fall of 1946, the American Women's Voluntary Services produced a program for WNYC titled “How Does Your Kitchen Fare,” aimed at helping housewives to make nourishing and economical meals, despite post-war food shortages.  The AWVS, founded by Alice Throckmorton McLean, was modeled after the British Women's Voluntary Services. During the war years the organization aided the war effort by sewing garments for servicemen, the members were also trained in "first aid, air raid and war gas work, home nursing and evacuation procedures." (The New York Times, Oct 20, 1940)

Lest you feel the NYC Municipal Archives' WNYC Collection is made up of only parades and tree lighting ceremonies, we've decided to start up a new mixtape mini-series of songs culled from the hours of archival audio we catalog.

Throughout the 1940’s WNYC aired a program titled Pals of the P.A.L., a youth-oriented variety show in cooperation with the Police Athletic League (P.A.L.).

In this 1945 WNYC broadcast, Austrian born Marie Lemmermeyer tells the “one true story of 'Silent Night'.”

On Christmas Eve 1948, three lucky children flew to Montreal, where they met Santa Claus and escorted him back to New York to deliver presents to the City's children.

In December 1942, just three years after the tree lighting spectacular at City Hall when one of Mayor La Guardia's children flipped a switch and instantly lit up 22 trees throughout the boroughs, strict wartime dimout regulations dictated how people in New York, New Jersey and Delaware celebrated the holiday season.

In September 1897, Francis Pharcellus Church, a former Civil War correspondent and editor at the New York Sun, received a letter from the then 8-year-old Virginia O’Hanlon.

On the occasion of the annual lighting of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center, we present to you the first of two vintage radio broadcasts we've found in the archives of similar ceremonies in the city.

WNYC's block-by-block coverage of General Eisenhower's triumphant return to the US in 1945.