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Co-workers in the Kingdom of Culture: Black Swan Records and the Political Economy of African American Music
David Suisman
In London in 1923, W. E. B. Du Bois addressed the third Pan-African
Congress on the topic of "The American Negro." In his talk he jumped
from familiar themes such as voting rights and lynching to one topic
that stood out: attempts by a large American phonograph record corporation
to bankrupt Black Swan Records, a small, black-owned company that
produced records for African American consumers. Why would a large
phonograph corporation launch such a campaign? And why would it
merit Du Bois's attention in that heady forum? By way of answering
those questions, this article investigates the rise and fall of
the small record company and explores the complex political economy
in which it operated. Black Swan was established by a former protégé
of Du Bois, Harry H. Pace, who saw the company as a powerful means
to respond to the hostile conditions African Americans faced, both
in the entertainment business and in American society at large.
At stake was not merely entertainment but access to, and control
of, material resources that could cultivate and boost African Americans'
creative spirits, support and encourage African American business
development and economic self-sufficiency, and, it was believed,
help shape popular opinion to produce tangible social, political,
and economic benefits for African Americans.
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| When music functions as a commodity, as it often does in American consumer culture, who makes it and on what terms are important questions of cultural and economic power. In the early twentieth century, the manufacturers and merchants of printed music and musical instruments (including phonographs) grew rapidly in size and prestige, and tremendous sales of pianos, sheet music, and phonograph records established music as an essential component of the growing consumer economy and national mass culture. By the end of World War I, the U.S. music industries produced goods worth more than $335 million; never before had those industries exerted such cultural authority or financial influence in American life. In the trenches and on the home front, music had been hailed as morally uplifting, and singing was widely promoted as a national duty. Pianos were exempted from the wartime luxury tax as a social necessity. Phonographs and records were not exempted, but the phonograph industry nonetheless thrived: the industry-leading Victor Talking Machine Company enjoyed its highest record sales to date in 1917 and 1918 and ended the war with back orders for some five million additional discs.2 |
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