War of the Worlds Letters

A digital library collection from the University of Michigan, The Richard Wilson – Orson Welles Papers preserves 1,349 letters sent to the New York City office of Orson Welles’s Mercury Theatre on the Air after the original CBS Radio Network broadcast of War of the Worlds on Sunday, October 30, 1938.

It was transcribed by volunteers and is now digitised and searchable.
It is an audience research study on whether the radio play caused panic and gives insight into public attitudes to science fiction at the time.