2 Episodes "Rosalie's Sick" (04-05-38)and "Opening Day Of The Mill" (04-13-38)
In many ways the program that Gertrude Berg devised in 1928 and sold to NBC radio the following year was unique. No other daily serial drama reflected so explicitly its creator's own ethnic background, and few other producers retained such close control over their work. Until the late 1930s, Berg herself wrote all the scripts, five to six fifteen-minute stories per week, and even after hiring outside writers continued to act as producer; she performed the role of the main character herself throughout the show's thirty year history on radio and television. The first season's scripts deal with such issues as the difficulties of raising children in an American environment that sometimes clashed with old world traditions, and the immigrant family's striving for economic success and security. Molly's conversations up the airshaft with her neighbor--"Yoo hoo, Mrs. Bloo-oom"--and frequent visitors in their small apartment vividly invoke New York tenement life. The success of this slice of specifically ethnic, but far from atypical, American experience resulted in eighteen thousand letters pouring into NBC's office when Berg's illness forced the show off the air for a week.
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