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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 09 November 2012
Amateur talent shows were among the most popular programs on mid-1930s network radio, but for African Americans they had an importance that went beyond entertainment. These shows attracted considerable attention in the black press and from black audiences because they held out the promise of escape from the constraints of Jim Crow into a colour-blind national public sphere. This article explores the participation of African American performers on the most popular of the radio amateur shows, Major Bowes’ Original Amateur Hour. It focusses particularly on two black classical performers on the Amateur Hour – singers Otis Holley and La Julia Rhea – contrasting their success on the radio show with the obstacles they encountered in the segregated world outside the studio. Radio did stimulate hope about the possibility of a race-free sound world, a new sense that such a thing could be possible. That the first generation to test the idea – gifted performers such as Holley and Rhea – often failed to translate radio success into mainstream acceptance, should not lead us to neglect the increase in hope that the early mass media provoked among African Americans.
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37 The Library of Congress (LOC) Amateur Hour collection has seven thousand applications from contestants who appeared between 1934 and 1948. I have not attempted to calculate the proportion of black contestants; some black contestants (identifiable from the accompanying letter) did not have their application marked “Negro.”
38 Transcribed from recording of the first NBC Bowes show, 24 March 1935. I have been able to listen to recordings of about ten Amateur Hour broadcasts.
39 “The Kitchen Trio,” Afro-American, 23 May 1936, 4.
40 Boxes 2, 3, 11, Amateur Hour collection, Music Division, LOC.
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55 Transcribed from the recording held in the Recorded Sound Reference Center, LOC.
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59 Quoted in Radio Guide, 29 Feb. 1936, 14.
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62 Ibid., 13.
63 “New York City,” Philadelphia Tribune, 17 March 1932, 15.
64 “Announce Winners in Poetry Contest,” Amsterdam News, 13 April 1932, 11.
65 Mark Hellinger, “All in a Day,” San Mateo Times, 29 Jan. 1936, 6; Radio Guide, 29 Feb. 1936, 14.
66 “Dishing the Dirt,” Afro-American, 9 June 1934, 9; “Music News,” Amsterdam News, 7 April 1934, 7; “Radio Review,” Afro-American, 24 March 1934, 8; “Radio Review,” Afro-American, 30 June 1934, 8.
67 “Otis Holley, Promising Soprano.”
68 Radio Guide, 29 Feb 1936, 14.
69 Ibid., 13.
70 White to Bowes, 4 Nov. 1935. NAACP Administrative File – Discrimination, NAACP records microfilm E 5 Pt.11A reel 23.
71 Bowes to White, 6 Nov. 1935, in ibid.
72 White to Holley and Holley to White, 8 Nov. 1935, in ibid.
73 Walter White memo to Roy Wilkins, 13 Nov. 1935, in ibid.
74 White to Bowes, 22 Nov. 1935, in ibid.
75 “Protests Barring of Amateur Hour,” Pittsburgh Courier, 23 Nov. 1935, 3.
76 Undated letter in NAACP Holley file.
77 “Otis Holley, Promising Soprano.”
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82 1930 US Census.
83 “Grants Audition to Dramatic Soprano,” Amsterdam News, 7 April 1934, 7.
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89 “La Julia Rhea Is Acclaimed Operatic Star,” Chicago Defender, 8 Aug. 1936, 8.
90 “Back Door Stuff,” Chicago Defender, 14 Sept. 1935, 5.
91 “Major Bowes’ Amateur Show at Marbro,” The Garfieldian, 28 Nov. 1935, 1.
92 “La Julia Rhea Crashes Gate of Opera Fame,” Chicago Defender, 7 Sept. 1935, 18.
93 Ibid.
94 “Operatic Star Turns Down Bid to Go to Dixie,” Chicago Defender, 28 Dec. 1935, 5.
95 Rhea, America's First Black Artist.
96 “Ky. Singer Becomes First Colored Star to Enact ‘Aida’,” Atlanta Daily World, 30 Oct. 1937, 1.
97 Atlanta Daily World, 27 March 1945, 2.
98 “Opera Stars Score in ‘Aida’,” Atlanta Daily World, 29 Dec. 1937, 1.
99 Lee Pattison to La Julia Rhea, 22 July 1938, in Rhea, America's First Black Artist.
100 “La Julia Rhea Crashes Gate of Opera Fame”; “‘Aida’ Brilliant Climax,” Philadelphia Tribune, 6 Sept. 1941, 14.
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102 “Chicago Group in Concert Business,” Amsterdam News, 20 Nov. 1948, 4.
103 “Opera Star Builds Home,” Chicago Tribune, 11 Sept. 1969, 2.
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