Hybrid highbrow: The Pacifica foundation and KPFA's reconstruction of elite culture, 1946–1963

Abstract

This article argues that the creators of the first listener‐sponsored FM radio station in the United States altered the meaning of “highbrow”; culture. Since the late 19th century, serious music and literature had been defined as a narrow range of Eurocentric classics, to be reproduced only in their “pure”; forms. Torn by conflicting cultural objectives, the founders of KPFA in Berkeley redefined high art. Responsive to what they saw as “authentic”; folk music, blues, and jazz, they thought nothing of including Leadbelly and Liszt on the same afternoon schedule, an act of cultural blasphemy to an earlier generation.

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