Letters reveal audience distress, fervor portrayed by media might be the earliest American instance of “fake news”

The University of Michigan Library has digitized, transcribed, and classified over 1,300 correspondence from fans sent in reaction to the 1938 transmission of Orson Welles’ “War of the Worlds.”

The complete assortment of letters, part of the university’s Screen Arts Mavericks & Makers Collection, has been made freely available for researchers and aficionados worldwide. These letters constitute just a fragment of the U-M Welles archive, which is the most extensive in existence.

“These letters encapsulate a distinctive moment in history as experienced by individuals across the United States from diverse backgrounds. Now everyone can access, analyze, and utilize them to support research and education in ways we are just beginning to envision,” remarked Phil Hallman, curator of the collection and a primary contributor to the “War of the Worlds” initiative.

Thanks to a successful Zooniverse campaign, nearly all of the 1,349 letters were transcribed and categorized by 1,291 volunteers within a single night. Typically, a Zooniverse project can span from weeks to years for completion, so the project’s rapid execution and the enthusiasm of its contributors took the U-M team by surprise.

“I expected it to take a couple of weeks to finish and was coordinating with my colleague to take turns addressing queries and overseeing submissions through the site,” stated Vince Longo, who started working on the project as a U-M graduate student and is currently an assistant professor at Western Michigan University.

“However, when we checked Zooniverse the following day, everything had been transcribed within 24 hours. We even received complaints regarding the inadequacy of letters or categories to select from. It truly highlights this as one of those invigorating stories in the world.”

The extensive collaboration—led by Longo and collection curator Phil Hallman, supported by library production that assembled technical, subject matter, and crowdsourcing expertise, and featuring a predominantly anonymous group of volunteer enthusiasts—has produced a resource with immense potential for exploration.

According to Hallman, archival materials can motivate students to delve into a new line of inquiry driven by their personal interests and curiosity. This resonates with Longo, who expresses that it was “the highest honor and joy” of his life to work with such materials. Similarly, A. Brad Schwartz, another U-M alumnus and author, shares this sentiment.

“It’s rare to recognize in real-time that something is altering your life, yet I sensed it strongly at that moment,” Schwartz remarked.

For him, this realization emerged when Hallman visited his class to discuss the materials available to them via the Special Collections Research Center, including boxes of fan letters.

“I distinctly recall exiting the Modern Languages Building thinking, ‘there’s a book hidden within these letters… although I was uncertain what that book would entail,’” Schwartz recounted.

“I presumed, as I think anyone would, given the narrative of how this broadcast ostensibly incited panic, that I’d comb through the letters and uncover accounts of individuals fleeing their homes, seizing their firearms, gathering their funds and possessions… and while that content is there, it represents a much smaller aspect of the story than anyone anticipated.”

Schwartz resolved to base his honors thesis on these letters. Organized by state, he began with the Michigan section. The first letter he encountered was penned on U-M Union letterhead, expressing appreciation towards Welles and gratitude for his artistic contributions. This was followed by multiple letters of endorsement, quickly revealing that panic and anxiety constituted only part of what “War of the Worlds” audiences experienced.

“There existed a far more compelling, layered story here that this material could elucidate. What I was on the brink of discovering was what would evolve into the ‘fake news’ phenomenon,” Schwartz explained.

“I realized that this historical moment, in the autumn of 1938, was likely the initial instance in American history when the nation collectively grappled with the dilemma of ‘can democracy endure if this new electronic medium can present falsehoods as convincingly as fact?’”

Schwartz believes this question has become crucial in the 21st century, amplifying the broader, more global anxieties ignited by “War of the Worlds.”

The honors thesis he completed in 2012 led to a PBS documentary “The American Experience: War of the Worlds” in 2013, which prompted Hallman to receive requests from classrooms seeking access to the letters. This generated the impetus and priority for the digitization initiative. Schwartz’s documentary also resulted in the publication of his book in 2015, “Broadcast Hysteria: Orson Welles’s War of the Worlds and the Art of Fake News.”

It is fair to assert that the fortuitous inclusion of “fake news” in the book’s title, released one month prior to Donald Trump’s announcement of his candidacy for the 2016 presidential election, may have generated some extra traffic to the book’s website.

“Most Americans missed the broadcasts and the ensuing debate, but everyone viewed the headlines in the newspapers the following day,” Schwartz noted.

“The reason a segment of the audience believed this was because it resonated with their pre-existing fears and biases. That is how misinformation and fake news operate. Media literacy can be taught. While it isn’t possible to shield individuals from being deceived entirely, we can equip them with the tools to safeguard themselves, allowing us to encourage more critical thinking in the emerging generations.”

Schwartz elaborates that although education did not completely shield individuals from being alarmed by the broadcast, it frequently imbued them with an instinct to question the information being relayed through the radio.

Concurrently, Longo endeavors to establish educational settings, platforms, and resources to empower teachers and students to engage with primary sources and letters in ways that provide greater depth than merely lecturing from a textbook regarding an event or specific era.

Digitizing these invaluable resources has eliminated many time-intensive barriers to accessibility, making the collection available on-demand for educational settings and curriculum design.

“Welles was a pioneer who stretched the limits of every medium he engaged with, both technically and in the narratives he aimed to convey,” Hallman stated. “Thus, I believe people will continue to discern relevance in both the work itself and in the reactions it elicited for the foreseeable future.”