WEW Radio: We Enlighten the World:
Saint Louis University and the Early Days of Radio

On April 26, 1921, radio station WEW went on the air for the first time in St. Louis. Less than six months after the first broadcast of KDKA in Pittsburgh, considered the first public radio station in the United States, WEW became the second licensed station in the U.S. and the first station west of the Mississippi River.

WEW was founded by Brother George Rueppel, S.J. (1864-1947), a meteorologist at Saint Louis University, who began transmitting data to the U.S. Weather Bureau and other meteorological stations by “radio-telephone” as early as 1912.

For its first two years, WEW transmitted little more than weather forecasts and market reports. These reports were highly useful for local farmers, but Brother Rueppel had bigger plans for the station. The station had been assigned the call letters WEW by the Department of Commerce, and Br. Rueppel liked to say they stood for “We Enlighten the World”. In 1923 the station began broadcasting a series of educational and religious programming. This programming included lectures by Saint Louis University faculty, covering a range of topics from “The Foundation of Catholic Faith” to “How Sugar is Made.” At the request of some disabled veterans in local hospitals, WEW soon also began to broadcast religious services from St. Francis Xavier College Church, the collegiate church of Saint Louis University.

The station grew over time. In 1928 WEW moved into its new studio, a suite of six rooms on the top floor of the University’s Law School (now O’Neil Hall). Full time broadcasting began in 1933, and in 1936 the station began live broadcasts of University sporting events. The first sports broadcast was the football team’s 6-0 victory over DePaul at Soldier Field in Chicago. WEW began its Sacred Heart Radio program in 1939, which would eventually spread to over a thousand radio stations in fourteen countries.

Another major milestone came in 1945, when WEW became the first station in St. Louis to receive a permit for Frequency Modulation (FM) broadcasting. A huge 542 foot FM broadcasting tower was built on the Saint Louis University campus. Sadly, Brother Rueppel died on May 31, 1947, the day before the first FM broadcast. He had remained the technical director of WEW from its earliest beginnings until his death at the age of 83.

The FM tower was dismantled in 1954, and WEW was sold at about the same time. Pius XII Memorial Library now stands on the site of the old tower, and WEW 770AM continues to this day as a privately owned radio station in St. Louis.

About the collection: This exhibit consists of 66 images, articles, and yearbook pages from the collections of the Saint Louis University Archives and the Midwest Jesuit Archives.