He was born into a Quaker family of farmers in Polecat Creek, North Carolina. According to his biographical script, he wrote:
“Edward R. Murrow, born near Greensboro, North Carolina, April 25, 1908. The third of three sons born to Mr. and Mrs. S. C. Murrow, farmers. About 40 acres of poor cotton land, water melons and tobacco."
The family moved to Washington State when he was six and where he was raised, but would leave his parents life behind him when he enrolled in Washington State University. His upbringing was both in a strict Quaker as well as a working class, agrarian family. He never forgot these roots as he grew older with his sympathy for the working class and poor. At the University he majored in speech, but also participated in debating, dramatics, Class President his Junior year, Cadet Colonel of the Student Army in last year, and President of Student Council. Upon graduation worked for several organizations for whom he developed student conferences. He also continued to study speech under Ida Lou Anderson, about whom Murrow wrote:
"She took a raw kid and gave him goals in life. ... She taught me to love good books, good music, gave me the only sense of values I have ... She knows me better than any person in the world. The part of me that is decent, that wants to do something, to be something, is the part she created. I owe the ability to live to her."1
Because of his positions he traveled to Europe several times which allowed him to make contacts. Eventually, he was hired by CBS in 1935. While working in New York for CBS, he did his first news broadcast, under the tutelage of Robert Trout, an established new broadcaster. On Christmas Eve 1936, he read the news using Trout's script. At age 27 sent overseas by CBS Vice-President, Ed Klauber to be CBS' "European Director of Talks" to provide speakers and acts for the newly burgeoning radio medium.