Most Americans trace the origins of conservative media to the rise of Rush Limbaugh and Fox News in the 1980s and 1990s. But Nicole Hemmer argues it started much earlier, in the 1940s and 1950s, when activists working in media emerged as leaders of the American conservative movement. She contends that these media activists not only started an array of enterprises, from publishing houses to radio programs to  magazines, they also built the movement -- with lasting consequences for American politics and media.

Nicole Hemmer is an assistant professor at the University of Virginia's Miller Center. Her new book is Messengers of the Right, Conservative Media and the Transformation of American Politics. She is a contributing editor to U.S. News & World Report and a syndicated columnist for The Age in Melbourne, Australia. She has written for numerous national and international publications, including the New York Times, Atlantic, New Republic, Politico, and Vox, and co-hosts and produces the Past Present podcast.

The Washington History Seminar is co-chaired by Eric Arnesen (George Washington University) and Christian Ostermann (Woodrow Wilson Center) and is sponsored jointly by the National History Center of the American Historical Association and the Wilson Center's History and Public Policy Program. It meets weekly during the academic year. The seminar thanks the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations and the George Washington University History Department for their support.