''Kate Hopkins, Angel of Mercy'' is an American old-time radio

soap opera A soap opera, or ''soap'' for short, is a typically long-running radio or television serial, frequently characterized by melodrama, ensemble casts, and sentimentality. The term "soap opera" originated from radio dramas originally being sponsored ...

. After beginning as a transcribed program on seven stations on October 23, 1939, it was broadcast weekday afternoons on

CBS CBS Broadcasting Inc., commonly shortened to CBS, the abbreviation of its former legal name Columbia Broadcasting System, is an American commercial broadcast television and radio network serving as the flagship property of the CBS Entertainm ...

from October 7, 1940, until April 3, 1942 and sponsored by

Maxwell House Maxwell House is an American brand of coffee manufactured by a like-named division of Kraft Heinz in North America and JDE Peet's in the rest of the world. Introduced in 1892 by wholesale grocer Joel Owsley Cheek, it was named in honor of the ...

coffee. The show's initial premise was that after Kate Hopkins' husband died in a fire, she became a visiting nurse to support herself and her young son in the mythical American town of Forest Falls. Hopkins faced concerns such as "Once started, malicious gossip is hard to stop. Is it wise to face slander openly, or to solve it by running away?" By July 1941, however, Hopkins had become "a widow of forty at a loose end when her son Tom is drafted into the Army." Hopkins was living on a plantation near New Orleans as companion to Jessie Atwood, "a retired and renowned lady of the theater". In that situation, Hopkins drew the attention of Atwood's son, who planned to marry 18-year-old Diane Pers. As time went on, Hopkins found herself attracted to Atwood's son, while Pers developed "much of a mutual interest" with Hopkins' son. Production constraints during World War II resulted in the cancellation of the show. After the

War Production Board The War Production Board (WPB) was an agency of the United States government that supervised war production during World War II. President Franklin D. Roosevelt established it in January 1942, with Executive Order 9024. The WPB replaced the Su ...

ordered a reduction in use of tin containers, executives of Maxwell House's parent company,

General Foods General Foods Corporation was a company whose direct predecessor was established in the United States by Charles William Post as the Postum Cereal Company in 1895. The company changed its name to "General Foods" in 1929, after several corporate ...

, ended the broadcasts.

Personnel

Characters in the program and the actors and actresses who portrayed them are shown in the table below.

Nelson Case Nelson Case (February 3, 1910 – March 23, 1976) was an American radio and television announcer. Case was the son of Walter and Ethel Case. His father was a newspaperman, and his mother was a driving force in the Long Beach Community Players. He ...

was the announcer. Writers for the program were

Gertrude Berg Gertrude Berg (Born Tillie Edelstein; October 3, 1899 – September 14, 1966) was an American actress, screenwriter, and producer. A pioneer of classic radio, she was one of the first women to create, write, produce, and star in a long-running h ...

and Chester McCracken.

References

External links

"Kate Hopkins", short story based on the radio program, from the February 1942 issue of ''Radio Mirror'' magazine
1939 radio programme debuts 1942 radio programme endings 1930s American radio programs 1940s American radio programs CBS Radio programs American radio soap operas Fictional American nurses {{US-radio-show-stub