Ida Lou Anderson

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Ida Lou Anderson (November 6, 1900 – September 16, 1941) was an American radio broadcaster and teacher who helped shape early radio. She taught at Washington State College in the 1920s and 1930s, and one of her best-known students was Edward R. Murrow, who became a famous broadcaster.

Anderson was born in Morganton, Tennessee, and moved with her family to Washington state as a child, settling in Colfax near Pullman. She had polio as a child, which left her with serious physical challenges. She studied drama and speech and learned from her neighbor, Mrs. Roy LaFollette, a University of California graduate who had acted in campus productions.

In college, Anderson excelled in speech and drama on the stage. In 1926, shortly after graduation, she became the college’s youngest professor and a popular teacher. She coached broadcasting and advised the campus radio station, pushing her students to give their best.

Edward Murrow was her prize pupil. He took many of her speech courses and she gave him private lessons to improve his radio work. She introduced him to poetry, classical literature, and a love of reading and music. They spent long hours talking about books, politics, and people, and Murrow later wrote that she gave him his strongest sense of values.

Anderson helped Murrow in important moments, even suggesting the opening line “This is London” for his Nazi-era broadcasts and the half-second pause after the first word. While Murrow was on air, she would sometimes sit in a dark room, listening and later sending him notes to improve.

She had to retire from teaching early and died from polio in her early forties, but her influence lived on, including in Murrow’s later broadcasts like This I Believe.

On June 8, 2023, Washington State University renamed the former President’s House in Pullman the Ida Lou Anderson House, honoring her life and resilience. Chancellor Elizabeth Chilton said the renaming honors someone who faced adversity, found community, and shaped others.