General Mills Corporate Communications

When the Washburn Crosby Company (predecessor of General Mills) bought a Minneapolis radio station in 1924, company leaders knew very little about how to use it. But they knew enough to hire an experienced managing director. And she just happened to be a woman.

Eleanor Poehler

Radio was emerging in the early 1920s as a powerful, but curious, new communication platform. Hundreds of stations were springing up, when a year earlier there were only 15 commercial stations in the United States. 

In Minneapolis, a couple of ham radio operators launched station WLAG – “The Call of the North” – in a downtown office.

Not really understanding what it would take to program a station for listener appeal, WLAG’s Walter Harris concluded that they needed to find someone with musical talent to add the right musical elements to the programming.

They turned to Eleanor Poehler. Born in 1885, she was a widow at age 21 with a child to support. After her husband's death, she studied music and became a soprano soloist.

Poehler had an excellent voice, taught voice at what was then the MacPhail School of Music and Dramatic Arts in Minneapolis, and was prominent in the music circles of Minneapolis and St. Paul.

First woman in charge of broadcasting
Because she knew music, both as a performer and a connoisseur, Harris hired Poehler in 1922 and named her managing director of WLAG – the first woman who was in complete charge of a broadcasting station.

But WLAG didn’t do well. By 1924, it was already failing financially. The Washburn Crosby Company purchased a new license and changed its call letters to WCCO, an acronym for the company name.

Because the Washburn leaders were equally unknowledgeable about how to program a radio station, they hired Poehler to continue on as the WCCO station’s managing director.

Passion for music drove  her
While she did not operate “The Gold Medal Station,” Poehler essentially served in the role of a producer, booking guests and arranging performances. But her passion was for educating people about music, and she soon realized that WCCO's management did not share that passion.

The company launched the Betty Crocker “Gold Medal Flour Home Service Talks” in 1924, and debuted the Wheaties Quartet in 1926, which ultimately saved that brand.

General Mills considered discontinuing Wheaties in 1929 before advertising manager Sam Gale noticed sales were best in regions where the Wheaties Quartet was heard. A commercial with the quartet went national, and sales soared.

True to her call, Poehler resigned from her position and returned to teaching music at MacPhail School. In 1927, she left Minneapolis for Seattle, where she lived until her passing in 1949.