DuMont Network and the Internet Archive

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While television was predominantly white at the time, DuMont produced pioneering shows led by women of color. In 1950, the phenomenally talented Hazel Scott likely became the first Black woman to host her own television show, decades before Oprah Winfrey’s debut in national syndication. The Hazel Scott Show, which aired thrice weekly on DuMont, showcased Scott—a piano prodigy and accomplished musician who had won an early Civil Rights case–a racial discrimination lawsuit against restaurateurs Harry and Blanche Utz in February 1949. However, after she was blacklisted in Red Channels (a publication that accused entertainers of communist sympathies during the McCarthy era), a smear campaign led to the show’s cancellation, and Scott’s groundbreaking contributions to early television history have largely been forgotten.


The Internet Archive is an important repository where saved DuMont programs have been collected and made available to the public. Many of these programs survive from personal collections of special database or producers who kept copies in their personal files. The Internet Archive houses a few surviving examples of DuMont programming, including clips from Cavalcade of Stars, where The Honeymooners and Jackie Gleason made their first appearances in sketches. The archive also includes Okay, Mother, a game show that premiered in 1948, and one of the earliest daytime network TV shows, with one surviving episode available to watch.

Also in the Internet Archive are one or a few episodes each of DuMont shows now in the public domain, including The Adventures of Ellery Queen, The Arthur Murray Show, Flash Gordon, Front Page Detective, The Goldbergs, Hold That Camera, The Johns Hopkins Science Review, Kids and Company, Life is Worth Living, Man Against Crime, Miss U.S. Television Grand Finals, The Morey Amsterdam Show, The Old American Barn Dance, On Your Way, Public Prosecutor, Rocky King- Inside Detective, The School House, Sense and Nonsense, Steve Randall, They Stand Accused, Tom Corbett- Space Cadet, Twenty Questions, and You Asked for It.