Coughlin from Priest to "Radio Priest"

In 1926, Father Coughlin was assigned as to be a pastor of a new church in a suburb of Detroit called Royal Oaks. This community was mostly inhabited with blue-collar workers.  Father Coughlin has an idea to further build his congregation and following and that was to bring his message across via the radio. He made contact with a Detroit radio station WJR and wanted to see if he could broadcast a weekly sermon based on current news and issues. From his first sermon, it seemed to be that he was an overnight success. The letters started to flow into the station with nothing but positive feedback. Along with the letters people started to send in financial contributions. The news media started calling him the "Radio Priest.” Being that he was such a success on the radio he took his radio sermon a bit further, he was on contract with CBS and he was now nationwide.