Edward M. Kirby

Colonel Edward M. Kirby (June 6, 1906–1974) was an American soldier and public relations officer. After graduating from the Virginia Military Institute he worked as a reporter at the Baltimore Evening Sun and briefly in investment banking. Kirby joined an advertising agency in 1930 and became public relations chief at radio station WSM-AM in 1933. He was appointed director of public relations at the National Association of Broadcasters in 1937 and moved to Washington, DC.

In 1940, Kirby was appointed as a civilian advisor to the US Secretary of War and the following year established the Radio Branch of the War Department's Press Relations Division. In 1942, he was appointed a lieutenant colonel in the US Army and was responsible for creating The Army Hour radio show. He was attached to General Dwight D. Eisenhower's staff at the Supreme Headquarters Allied Expeditionary Force in 1944, and was responsible for coordinating all radio broadcasts associated with the invasion of Normandy.

He worked on several military radio programmes for which he was awarded a 1944 Personal Peabody Award, an honor for excellence in radio broadcasting. After his promotion to full colonel in 1945, he received the Legion of Merit and honorary appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire.

After the war, Kirby became a public relations consultant and co-authored Star-Spangled Radio, an account of the use of radio in World War II. He was recalled to active service during the Korean War, heading the Army’s Radio-TV Branch and creating The Big Picture television documentary series. He left the Army in 1953 and in later life worked as a public relations advisor to the Greater Washington Board of Trade, the People-to-People Foundation, and the United Service Organizations.

Early life and career Kirby was born in Brooklyn, New York, on June 6, 1906, but lived most of his younger life in Harpers Ferry, West Virginia. He attended the Virginia Military Institute, graduating in 1926. That same year, Kirby found employment as a reporter and feature writer at the Baltimore Evening Sun. He left the Sun in 1928 to become a statistician and newsletter writer in the investment banking industry. He left the investment banking industry in 1929, the same year as the Wall Street crash. In 1930 Kirby became vice president and account executive of the C. P. Clark advertising agency in Nashville, Tennessee. He was also an advertising manager for the National Life and Accident Insurance Company, also based in Nashville. In 1933 Kirby became public relations chief for Nashville radio station WSM-AM.

World War II

In 1940 Kirby was appointed as a civilian advisor on radio to the Secretary of War. He was promoted to colonel in 1945, the same year he received the Legion of Merit and honorary appointment as an Officer of the Order of the British Empire. in which role he successfully proposed that a Pageant of Peace that would incorporate the lighting of the National Christmas Tree but expand it much further into a weeks-long Christmas-themed program.

From 1953 to 1957 he also worked in public relations for the People-to-People Foundation and from 1957 to 1970 served as director of public relations for the United Service Organizations.

Kirby died in Washington, DC in 1974. The Library of American Broadcasting's Broadcast Pioneers Library, housed in the University of Maryland's Hornbake Library, holds a collection of papers relating to Kirby, spanning the period 1923 to 1983 but mainly consisting of material from between 1938 and 1959.