Research Catalog

Details

Additional authors

1. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division

Description

1. 2 audiocassettes

Summary

1. The collection consists of 3 audio recordings and 1 moving image recording relating to his career as a ventriloquist.

Subject

1. Video recordings
2. Sound recordings
3. African American wit and humor
4. African Americans in the performing arts
5. African American entertainers
6. Ventriloquists > United States
7. Ventriloquism
8. Cooper, John W (John Walcott), 1873-1966

Genre/Form

1. Sound recordings.
2. Video recordings.

Call number

1. Sc MIRS Cooper 2004-35

Note

1. John Walcott Cooper Jr. (1873-1966) was a ventriloquist born in Brooklyn, New York City. He was the first African American to play the predominantly white vaudeville circuits and was known as the "Black Napoleon of Ventriloquism." He also performed under the pseudonym Hezekiah Jones. Cooper was a member of the vocal group the Southern Jubilee Singers from 1886 until about 1890. He debuted as a ventriloquist in the 1895-1896 theatrical season, and gave his first professional show in 1897. He named his main ventriloquist figure Sam Jackson. The figure was crafted by the well-known figure maker Theodore Mack, who worked with many ventriloquists such as Edgar Bergen. In one of his earliest skits, Fun in a Barber Shop, Cooper voiced six different puppet characters all in their barber chairs. Over the course of his career, Cooper was a member of the Negro Actors Guild of America, the Colored Vaudeville Benevolent Association, and the International Brotherhood of Ventriloquists. He retired in 1960 at the age of eighty-six years old.

Source (note)

1. Joan Maynard

Linking entry (note)

1. See the Manuscript, Archives and Rare Books Division for the John W. Cooper collection, 1887-2001. Sc MG 743. Photographs can be found in the Photographs and Prints Division. Artifacts can be found in the Art and Artifact Division.

Author

1. Cooper, John W. (John Walcott), 1873-1966.

Title

1. John W. Cooper audio and moving image collection.

Publisher

1. [2004]

Linking entry

1. See the Manuscript, Archives and Rare Books Division for the John W. Cooper collection, 1887-2001. Sc MG 743. Photographs can be found in the Photographs and Prints Division. Artifacts can be found in the Art and Artifact Division.

Connect to:

1. Finding Aid for the collection
2. Request Access to Schomburg Moving Images and Recorded Sound

Added author

1. Schomburg Center for Research in Black Culture. Moving Image and Recorded Sound Division.

Research call number

1. Sc MIRS Cooper 2004-35