in the very early 1930s, academic news;their Great Books seminar was enough of a novelty both in substanceand method that celebrities on transcontinental train trips began tostop off in Chicago to take a look. Among these were Hollywood starsLillian Gish and Orson Welles, and Eugene Meyer, publisher of theWashington Post (and father of Katherine Graham, a student enrolled inthe seminar).18 The most famous visitor of all was Gertrude Stein.

Fifteen minutes into the program, listeners began to call the station in terror, believing that the earth was really being invaded by Martians.