Thad Holt (1898-1984) was a radio and television executive in Alabama and a figure in the New Deal's emergency agencies in the 1930s. Holt headed the Works Project Administration in Alabama under the Roosevelt administration from 1932 to 1936 and served in Washington as assistant administrator of the WPA in 1936 and 1937. In 1956 he served as a special consultant on overseas television projects for the United States Information Agency's Voice of America.
A pioneer Alabama broadcaster, Holt and his business partner Edward L. Norton leased Birmingham's WAPI-AM from a local group of businessmen (incorporated as "The Voice of Alabama") from 1937 to 1953. During that time, Holt and Norton established FM radio and television for the first time in the state; they launched WAFM (later called WAPI-FM and now WJOX-FM) in 1947 and the first television station in Alabama, WAFM-TV (now WVTM-TV) in 1949.
The Alabama Educational Television Commission was created in 1953, and Holt and Norton were employed to supervise the planning and construction of the first and any subsequent non-commercial TV stations. When the first two stations began broadcasting in 1955, Alabama became the nation's first state with an educational television network. Holt was an early proponent of using satellites for transmission of educational programs.
The collection documents Holt's career in Alabama broadcasting from 1930 to 1980 in educational television, cable television, and satellite broadcasting. It includes business records, business, and personal correspondence, financial records, and other documents.
