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Kate Aitken: Eye on Princess Margaret
For busy housewives in postwar Canada, Kate Aitken's singsong voice was a welcome diversion from their everyday duties. Three days a week, Mrs. A and a rotating cast of male sidekicks shared advice on cooking, child care and fashion and offered a perspective on the broader world of women and politics. Only eight Kate Aitken programs from 1948 to 1950 survive, but they allow a glimpse into an era when "women's programming" was its own category at CBC and the ads were just part of the conversation.
• In her book Making Your Living is Fun, Mrs. A shared a story about broadcast standards at the CBC. She planned to caution homemakers not to put excess rat poison in the garbage, but to flush it down the toilet. After the censor received her script, she received a stern warning to change her wording: "On CBC we do not flush toilets!"
Program: Kate Aitken
Broadcast Date: April 13, 1949
Host: Kate Aitken, Johnny Scott
Duration: 14:38
Last updated: March 5, 2012
Page consulted on February 26, 2013
All Clips from this Topic
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"Your women's editor," Kate Aitken, brings news and views to Canadian ...
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Mrs. A addresses listeners' questions on topics ranging from emigratin...
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Kate shares a chicken recipe and polls the music charts across Canada.
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On the last day of 1948, Kate Aitken salutes an international roster o...
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Mrs. A broadcasts her show from Vancouver as she embarks on a whirlwin...
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In this Easter program, Mrs. A shares a recipe for glazed ham and tell...
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Mrs. A interviews a young writer, Farley Mowat, and asks his wife Fran...
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The focus is on French fashions as Kate Aitken broadcasts from the Cit...