Evelyn Oppenheimer was born in Dallas, Texas in 1907 and graduated from Forest Avenue High School, now Madison High School. She received her Ph.B. at the University of Chicago where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1929. During her time at college, Oppenheimer began writing book reviews for local newspapers. While recovering from an emergency appendectomy, she heard a radio broadcast of New York radio reviewer Alexander Woollcott and knew she had found her calling.
In 1934, after returning to Dallas, Oppenheimer began giving oral book reviews, first at Sanger Brothers and then at A. Harris and Titche-Goettinger department stores. Due to her Dallas success, she traveled from East Texas to the Texas Panhandle speaking in various cities. In 1949, she began weekly radio book reviews, first at KRLD-AM and other local Dallas stations, and in the early 1970s at WRR-FM, where she continued to broadcast until a few months before her death. Her radio program was the longest running radio book review show in the United States and could be heard in Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, Los Angeles, and San Francisco.
Oppenheimer served as a literary agent for over twenty-five years to many authors including Elithe Hamilton Kirkand, Ramon Adams, Frank Tolbert, Fred Lowery, Campbell and Lynn Loughmiller, and Stanley Marcus, among others. She also taught contemporary literature at Southern Methodist University’s School of Continuing Education (1976) and was an instructor in literary criticism at the University of Texas at Austin, Texas Tech University, University of Dallas, University of California, Los Angeles, and University of Wisconsin Extension.
Oppenheimer’s published books included: Legend and Other Poems (1951); Book Reviewing for an Audience (1962); The Articulate Woman: Public Speaking for Women (1968); Red River Dust (co-author, 1968); Texas in Color (1971); Oral Book Reviewing to Stimulate Reading (1980); Tilli Comes to Texas (1986); Gilbert Onderdonk: The Nurseryman of Mission Valley, Pioneer Horticulturist (1991); and A Book Lover in Texas (1995). She wrote the introduction for Heroes of Texas: Featuring Oil Portraits from the Summerfield G. Roberts Collection (1964). She was editor for The Book of Dallas (1976) and Tolbert of Texas: The Man and His Work (1986).
An avid collector of books, Oppenheimer donated 800 first-editions to Bridwell Library at Southern Methodist University, many of them signed by their authors, as well as her personal archive of hand-corrected transcripts and tape recordings of her broadcast reviews. She donated her collection of rare children’s books to the University of North Texas and the remainder of her library to Cal Farley’s Boys Ranch in Tascosa, TX after her death.
Evelyn Oppenheimer died at the age of 90 in September 1998.
Sources:
Compton, Robert. Oppenheimer Scholarships Continue Evvie’s Good Work. Dallas Morning News, April 16, 2000.
Nomination form, Evelyn Oppenheimer papers, Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University (BridArch 208.12).
Simnacher, Joe. Book Critic Oppenheimer Dies of Cancer… Dallas Morning News, September 4, 2000.
Vick, Frances B. Books Were Her Life, and She Passed it on to Writers. Dallas Morning News, September 20, 1998.
From the guide to the Evelyn Oppenheimer papers Brid Arch 208. 12., 1903-2000, 1930-1995, (Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University)
