Lynn Poole

{{main|The Johns Hopkins Science Review}}

Poole began producing the weekly, live television program The Johns Hopkins Science Review in 1948. Poole was not educated as a scientist, but he nonetheless wrote most of the programs, and acted as its on-air host and interviewer. As LaFollete describes it, he was a "new phenotype" and "created the persona of the scientist's facile promoter and authoritative interpreter." Each week's half-hour show typically introduced one or more guests, often from the Johns Hopkins faculty and staff. The guest might show how a scientific apparatus such an electron microscope or an oscilloscope worked, or would briefly explain scientific ideas to the viewers. In the December 5, 1950 episode, the live broadcast of a fluoroscope screen was used by doctors in New York and Chicago to diagnose the injuries to a machinist in the hospital in Baltimore. This show demonstrated the medical possibilities both of the fluoroscope and of television itself.Lucanio and Coville (2002) discuss this show at length, pp. 112–113. In the April 21, 1952 episode, a scientist drank a solution containing the radioactive isotope of iodine, and then followed its progress in his own body with a Geiger counter. Poole then visited England to film a three-part series "An American Looks at Science in England".{{cite web |last=Baird |first=Iain Logie |title=1932 Television Demonstrated in 1952 |url=https://www.bairdtelevision.com/1932-television-demonstrated-in-1952.html |publisher=www.bairdtelevision.com |date=March 21, 2021}} He occasionally did demonstrations himself, such as climbing a TV transmitter mast or eating a grasshopper on live television. The guests included national figures like rocket scientist Wernher von Braun (October 20, 1952). Some shows served as conduits for public information, as in the show of April 3, 1951 on biological warfare, which featured Norman Kiefer of the Federal Civil Defense Administration.

Lucanio and Coville have written, "What is unique about the series is that in a time of political and social conservatism, Science Review tackled controversial issues with a seeming lack of concern for any possible repercussions. While other shows sidestepped the use of the word "pregnant", for example, Science Review was amazingly forthright in showing the first live birth on television. In a related episode, Science Review presented a straightforward program demonstrating to women viewers how to examine themselves for breast cancer, and then went on to talk frankly about mastectomies."

From 1950 to 1955, the program was syndicated nationally by the DuMont Television Network, and won Peabody Awards in 1950 (honorable mention) and 1952.{{cite web |title=The Peabody Awards: Winners – 1950s |url=http://www.peabody.uga.edu/winners/winners_1950s.php |publisher=The University of Georgia |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20120310070208/http://www.peabody.uga.edu/winners/winners_1950s.php |archivedate=March 10, 2012 }} Poole produced three successor series through 1960, when Johns Hopkins ended production. Kinescope films survived for many episodes of these series, which is unusual for early live television. Copies have been archived at the Johns Hopkins library.

Poole documented the techniques he developed for television programming devoted to science in a 1950 book, Science via Television.{{cite book |last=Poole |first=Lynn |title=Science via Television |publisher=Johns Hopkins Press |year=1950 |oclc=366994}} LaFollette notes that, "Production approaches that are now standard practice on NOVA and the Discovery Channel derive, in fact, from experimentation by television pioneers like Lynn Poole and Don Herbert and such programs as Adventure, Zoo Parade, Science in Action, and the Bell Telephone System's science specials. These early efforts were also influenced by television's love of the dramatic, refined during its first decade and continuing to shape news and public affairs programming, as well as fiction and fantasy, today."

Poole was also a prolific author, mostly of popular and young adult books about science.{{cite web |title=Search Results |url=http://www.worldcat.org/search?q=au%3ALynn+Poole&fq=x0%3Abook+%3E+ln%3Aeng&qt=advanced&dblist=638 |work=WorldCat }} An early title related to several episodes of the Science Review program was Your Trip into Space (1953).{{cite book |last=Poole |first=Lynn |title=Your Trip into Space |url=https://archive.org/details/yourtripintospac00pool |url-access=registration |year=1953 |publisher=Whittlesey House |oclc=1409447 }} A second volume that was noted in The New York Times was Science: The Super Sleuth (1954), which was about forensic science.{{cite book |last=Poole |first=Lynn |title=Science: The Super Sleuth |year=1954 |publisher=Whittlesey House |oclc=530940 }}{{cite news |last=Peet |first=Creighton |title=Elementary, Dear Watson |date=December 19, 1954 |newspaper=The New York Times |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1954/12/19/96517539.pdf }} Paid access. Many of his books were published after his television work ceased in 1960.

Poole and his wife Gray Johnson Poole wrote at least 16 nonfiction books together, beginning in 1960 with Scientists Who Changed the World, published by Dodd, Mead in its Makers of Our Modern World series.{{cite book |last1=Poole |first1=Lynn |last2=Poole |first2=Gray |title=Scientists Who Changed the World |year=1960 |publisher=Dodd, Mead (Makers of our modern world) |oclc=14621307}} The Pooles also published at least one novel, The Magnificent Traitor; a Novel of Alcibiades and the Golden Age of Pericles (1968).{{cite book |last1=Poole |first1=Lynn |last2=Poole |first2=Gray |title=The magnificent traitor; a novel of Alcibiades and the Golden Age of Pericles |year=1968 |publisher=Dodd, Mead |oclc=1444347}} One Passion, Two Loves; the story of Heinrich and Sophia Schliemann, discoverers of Troy (Crowell, 1966){{cite book |last1=Poole |first1=Lynn |last2=Poole |first2=Gray |title=One passion, two loves; the story of Heinrich and Sophia Schliemann, discoverers of Troy |year=1966 |publisher=Thomas Y. Crowell and Co. |oclc= 284890}} is their work most widely held in WorldCat libraries.

Poole retired from Johns Hopkins in 1965, but continued his writing career. Poole died of a heart attack in 1969, at the age of 58. He'd had the first of several heart attacks in 1957, and of course had published a book, I am a Chronic Cardiac (1964), about his experiences.{{cite book |title=I am a Chronic Cardiac |last=Poole |first=Lynn |publisher=Dodd, Mead |year=1964 |oclc=01440351 }}

Gray Poole wrote at least four more books that were published during the 1970s.

The de Grummond Children's Literature Collection at the University of Southern Mississippi in Hattiesburg holds an unprocessed collection of the papers of Lynn and Gray Johnson Poole.{{cite web |title=Unprocessed Manuscript Collection: Lynn and Gray Johnson Poole Papers |url=http://www.lib.usm.edu/legacy/degrum/public_html/html/research/findaids/DG1091.html |publisher=de Grummond Children's Literature Collection. University of Southern Mississippi |date=November 6, 2008 |accessdate=September 11, 2012}} No biographical sketch.

{{reflist |25em |refs=

{{cite news |title=Lynn Poole, Won Early TV Prizes |newspaper=The New York Times |date=April 15, 1969 |url=https://timesmachine.nytimes.com/timesmachine/1969/04/16/78337235.pdf}} {{subscription required}}

{{cite journal |title=Live from Baltimore – It's the Johns Hopkins Science Review! |last=De Pasquale |first=Sue |journal=Johns Hopkins Magazine |date=February 1995 |volume=47 |issue=1 |url=http://www.jhu.edu/jhumag/295web/scirevu.html}}

{{cite book |first1=Patrick |last1=Lucanio |first2=Gary |last2=Coville |title=Smokin' Rockets: The Romance of Technology in American Film, Radio and Television, 1945–1962 |year=2002 |publisher=McFarland |isbn=9780786412334 |pages=108–114 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=chD8HUd5uXcC&pg=PA108 }}

{{cite news |title=Gray Johnson Poole, 98, journalist, author |date=August 29, 2005 |newspaper=The Baltimore Sun |url=https://www.baltimoresun.com/2005/08/29/gray-johnson-poole-98-journalist-author/ }}

{{cite book |last=LaFollette |first=Marcel Chotkowski |title=Science on the Air: Popularizers and Personalities on Radio and Early Television |publisher=University of Chicago Press |year=2008 |pages=216–221 |isbn=9780226467597 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=XZSy5Qhvqt0C&pg=PA216 }}

{{cite journal |title=A Survey of Science Content in U.S. Television Broadcasting, 1940s through 1950s: The Exploratory Years |first=Marcel C. |last=LaFollette |journal=Science Communication |date=September 2002 |volume=24 |issue=1 |pages=34–71 |doi=10.1177/107554700202400103 |s2cid=144331760 }} {{subscription required}}

{{cite web |title=Johns Hopkins Television Programs 1948–1960 |year=2004 |last=Sobol |first=Cathy |url=http://www.library.jhu.edu/collections/specialcollections/jhuxmlkineFind.body.html |publisher=Special Collections, Milton S. Eisenhower Library, Johns Hopkins University |accessdate=May 19, 2012 |url-status=dead |archiveurl=https://archive.today/20121211071244/http://www.library.jhu.edu/collections/specialcollections/jhuxmlkineFind.body.html |archivedate=December 11, 2012 }} The title, original date of broadcast, an abstract, and credits are given for each episode with a surviving kinescope.

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• {{cite book |last=Geier |first=Leo |title=Ten Years with Television at Johns Hopkins |publisher=Johns Hopkins University Press |year=1958 |oclc=1179427}} – a book about The Johns Hopkins Science Review by a co-producer

• {{LCAuth|n50019217|Lynn Poole|31|}}
• [http://lccn.loc.gov/n79032975 Gray Johnson Poole] at LC Authorities, with 23 records, and [https://worldcat.org/identities/lccn-n79-032975 at WorldCat]
• {{DNB portal|127357270|NAME=Gray Johnson Poole}}

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Category:American television personalities

Category:American science writers

Category:Case Western Reserve University alumni

Category:1910 births

Category:1969 deaths

Category:People from Eagle Grove, Iowa

Category:20th-century American non-fiction writers