Papers of Adelaide Fish Hawley Cumming, 1922-1967

Adelaide Fish was born in Scranton, Pennsylvania on March 6, 1905. She graduated from Cincinnatus (New York) High School in 1922 and in 1926 received her bachelor's degree in music from Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester. In 1967, Adelaide Fish Hawley Cumming was awarded a Ph.D. in speech education from New York University. She married Mark Hawley on December 25, 1932; their only child, Marcia, was born on April 10, 1937. On April 8, 1950, four years after her divorce from Mark Hawley, Cumming married Lawrence Cumming.

Following her graduation from college, Cumming taught music for two and a half years at the Alabama College School of Music in Montevallo. She then returned to New York, intending to pursue a career in opera, but instead joined a trio which sang in vaudeville, on the radio, and in churches.

Cumming began her thirty-year broadcasting career in 1935. She narrated numerous radio and television programs including: "The Woman Reporter", "Woman's Page of the Air", and "News of the Day" (an MGM newsreel). Many of her radio shows and personal appearances focused on the world of fashion; her program, "Fashions on Parade" (1948-1949) was television's first such show. Cumming took on the role of Betty Crocker in 1950; she portrayed BC on television and radio until 1964, when General Mills changed its advertising campaign and when she left broadcasting. Throughout her career, Cumming appeared as a guest speaker at numerous functions, ranging from a luncheon of the Advertising Club of Boston to 4-H Club banquets. In addition, she wrote the scripts for many of the programs in which she appeared, as well as several articles and stories.