Best 1920s 1930s
Bessie Smith was an African American blues singer widely known as the 'Empress of the Blues.' She began her career performing in vaudeville tents and theaters before signing with Columbia Records in 1923. During the 1920s, she became one of the era's highest-paid and best-selling Black recording art...
Ethel Waters was an African American singer and actress who transitioned from the Black vaudeville circuit to become a mainstream crossover star. She was one of the first Black women to perform on white vaudeville stages and to headline at prestigious venues like the Cotton Club. As a vocalist, she...
The Mutual Burlesque Circuit was a theatrical organization operating in the United States during the 1920s. Functioning as a booking wheel, it challenged the established Columbia circuit by organizing and routing touring burlesque companies through a network of affiliated venues. This structure prov...
Alberta Hunter was an African American blues singer and songwriter whose performing career spanned several decades across vaudeville, jazz, and blues. She rose to prominence in the 1920s, performing in major venues in Chicago, New York, and European capitals such as Paris and London. She also wrote...
Ida Cox was an African American blues singer and vaudeville performer nicknamed the 'Uncrowned Queen of the Blues.' She recorded prolifically for Paramount Records in the 1920s, writing many of her own songs under her name and various pseudonyms. She toured on the Theater Owners Booking Association...
Earl Carroll's Vanities was a series of Broadway revues produced by American theatrical impresario Earl Carroll, beginning in 1923. The productions combined songs, comedy sketches, dance, elaborate scenery, and large ensembles of showgirls in a format associated with interwar American revue and burl...
The Irving Place Theatre is a historic New York City venue that originally opened in 1888 and became renowned for hosting Yiddish theatre and later Broadway productions.
Clark and McCullough were an American vaudeville and burlesque comedy duo consisting of Bobby Clark and Paul McCullough, active primarily from the 1910s through the early 1930s. The act was characterized by rapid-fire comedic delivery and Clark's distinctive persona, which featured painted-on eyegla...
Hinda Wassau was an American burlesque and vaudeville performer active in the early 20th century, particularly during the 1920s and 1930s. She is frequently cited in the history of American entertainment as one of the early pioneers of the striptease. While the exact origins of the striptease are of...
A burlesque theater associated with the Minsky family on New York City's Lower East Side, notable as a major venue on early 20th-century American burlesque circuits.
Ted Healy was an American vaudeville performer, comedian, and actor who developed a roughhouse stage act built around himself and a group of disruptive assistants. Several members of that troupe, including Moe Howard, Larry Fine, and Shemp Howard, later became central figures in the Three Stooges. H...
Blackface comedy duo of Charles Moran and George Mack, known as The Two Black Crows, who achieved wide popularity through vaudeville and early phonograph recordings in the 1920s.
