The First Queen of Comedy: Moms Mabley

The extraordinary Moms Mabley performed with Duke Ellington, Count Basie and Cab Calloway, wrote with Zora Neale Hurston, and went on to play Harlem's Apollo more than any other entertainer.  She was the first female comedian superstar, with a career spanning more than sixty years. 

Mabley has quite a background.  Orphaned by the age of eleven, and a survivor of rape, she had given birth to two children who had been put up for adoption before the age of sixteen.  She was forced by her step-father into marrying an older man.  With the encouragement of her grandmother (a former slave, whom she later based her stage persona on), Mabley ran away to Cleveland, Ohio.  Ohio is where she joined the vaudeville circuit and began her stardom. 

Featured in 24 comedy albums, she went on to produce and act in at least nine plays and seven films. By the end of her career, she was making $10,000/week for her stage appearances alone. Cited as a hero and influence by many comedians, she remarked, herself, on how often she saw white comedians sitting at her show with pen and paper in  hand.  She had no problem confronting these material thieves. 

From Moms Mabley's BookRags Biography:

Though Mabley's act may seem stereotypical to some, it was really quite a clever show business ploy. While attractive young women, particularly black women, could show little in the way of intelligence or sexuality without condemnation, "Moms" was safe—a laughable figure of fun. From behind the shabby clothes and mobile toothless grin, Mabley could offer sharp-witted insights and social commentary that would have been unacceptable from a more serious source. Beloved by African-American audiences, Mabley's whole persona was an "in" joke among blacks, and she did not hesitate to focus her scathing humor on whites and their ill treatment of other races. She also demonstrated glimmers of an early feminism with her jokes about old men and their illusions of authority. One of her trademark jokes was, "Ain't nothing an old man can do for me, but me a message from a young man."

I could find just one video clip of Moms Mabley comedy online.  It's not the most biting social commentary, but you do get to see her perform:

 There's some question over whether or not Moms was gay.  Besides "Moms," a hit play in '87, blog posts and a few academic papers, relatively little has been written about her.  What a shame.

More on Moms Mabley's Life

A Tribute to Marietta Holley

"The female Mark Twain." This is how historians refer to Marietta Holley, if refer to her at all (she was largely forgotten until the 1980's). 

Never heard of writer, activist and humorist Marietta Holley?  Don't beat yourself up.  It doesn't help that she wrote under the name "Josiah Allen's Wife," but still you'd think a former literary celebrity, who sold over 10 million books in the 19th century, would have somehow snuck into our literary canon.   

Holley, born in 1836, began publishing poems under a male pseudonym in the 1860's.  In 1870, she sent a poem to Mark Twain's publisher, Elijah Bliss, who strongly encouraged her to write a book, resulting in the Samantha Smith Allen series.  

From Josiah Allen’s Wife: The Story of Marietta Holley:

In Samantha, Marietta created a character who would talk about women’s rights and women’s lives, particularly in rural districts where life was very hard. To defuse resistance to her radical ideas, Samantha had to be a woman who wasn’t a rabid suffragist.  As a woman who could laugh at herself as well as her husband, Josiah Allen’s Wife was accepted as a moderate thinker by the reading public. 

She died in 1936, having written at least 16 books and many poems and short stories. 

Many things about Holley are remarkable: she was tight with both Susan B. Anthony and Mark Twain.  As a pioneer for women's rights, she was invited to speak to congress multiple times.  She brought social and political criticism to the people through her humorous writing, popular among men and women. 

As an early American humorist and critical thinker, she changed the political landscape of her time and paved the way for the likes of Dorothy Parker and Erma Bombeck.  Marietta, you are gone but not forgotten... at least by a handful of us. 

Links:

Kate Winter tries to get other educators to teach about Holley

One of her most popular works, Samantha at Saratoga

Dying to know more about Holley vs. Twain?  Check out Marietta Holley and Mark Twain: 

Cultural-Gender Politics and Literary Reputation by Charlotte Templin