If Louise brooks and Clara Bow were the flapper personalizations of the Jazz Era, Josephine Baker was what America didn't want in the 20’s: A seductive, talented, notorious, rich and “black” entertainer. Josephine Baker rose from being a St. Louis street child to be-coming “the toast of Paris” for decades, as the first black superstar, a war hero, and a civil rights activist.
Josephine Baker
A flapper in her own right
Josephine Baker was born Freda Josephine McDonald in St. Louis, Missouri, on June 3, 1906, to laundress Carrie McDonald and, absent father, vaudeville drummer Eddie Carson. Baker’s youth was one of poverty and hunger. At 8 years old, she took jobs cleaning houses and babysitting for wealthy white families who were often abusive to her. Though she tried to return to school, she quit at the age of 13, and became a waitress at The Old Chauffeur's Club. That’s where she met and married Willie Wells, to only divorce him weeks later as she never depended on anyone for financial support. She acquired her strong survival skills in the slums of St. Louis, sleeping in cardboard shelters and scavenging for food in trashcans, when not dancing on the street corners for nickels and dimes.
Soon, she was noticed and recruited by the St. Louis Chorus vaudeville show, and started touring the United States with the Jones Family Band and the Dixie Steppers. By 1921, The Twenties were beginning to roar, and at age 15, Josephine married William Howard Baker. She would retain his name as the one she had been using onstage for the rest
of her life, even though she left him two years later when she ran away for New York, disgusted by the blatant racial discrimination in St. Louis. In Harlem, she tried for and was rejected as a chorus girl for The Dixie Steppers in Sissle and Blake's 1923 production Shuffle Along for being “too ugly, too skinny and too dark.”
Still, she learned the chorus line's routines as she worked then as a dresser; thus, when a dancer left, she was the logical replacement. She quickly became a sensation purposely acting clumsy to the delight of the audience. Later on, Baker performed with the Chocolate Dandies at the Plantation Club. There, she was again a favorite, perfecting the Charleston dance until 1925, when the show’s curtain dropped for the last time.
At the peak of France’s interest for American Jazz and exotic venues, Baker was offered $250 a week to move to Paris. Baker had developed a dislike for America’s segregated and bigoted attitude anyway. Paris, with its
The St. Louis slum girl
Paris
Josephine Baker by the Studio Harcourt, Paris, 1940.
Josephine Baker dancing the Charleston at the Folies-Bergère, Paris, 1926.
42 | Ceres Magazine | Oct/Nov 2015