The Cavalcade of America’s sponsor, The Du Pont Company, had profited from gunpowder during the first World War. Years of bad press led them to hire the ad agency Batten, Barton, Durstine, and Osborne. They wanted a brand perception change.

The Cavalcade of America was the answer.

In 1944 The Cavalcade of America was in the midst of a thirteen-year primetime run on NBC. Sponsored by Dupont, the program dramatized history and historical fiction, focusing intensely on the war at home and abroad.

On Christmas night at 8PM, Walter Huston emceed a program called “America For Christmas” which took listeners around the country to showcase all the things that made different states in the United States so unique.