Suzanne B. Sostmann
AMST 205--0101 AMST 205 Project 4
Greenbelt Museum Artifact Study

AMOS 'N' ANDY

Sam 'n' Henry

On January 12, 1926 two actors named Charles Correll and Freedman Gosden debuted a show named Sam 'n' Henry on WGN radio in the midwest. It "focused right away on the most dramatic development in Afro-American life between the two World Wars: the Great Migration of rural southern blacks to big cities, largely in the North." ¹ The show was about the two characters who's names named the show. They were supposed to be two African American men adjusting to life. Both men played all of the characters that showed up on the show.
This show began as radio was getting off the ground. There were no broadcasting networks and shows were often thrown on haphazardly. Soon though, networks began and when Correll and Gosden decided that they wanted to get the show networked and their contract was up, they left WGN.² There were many other shows that came about in this time. If you'd like to learn more about radio programming, go to Brian Mayhew's page.Since WGN had patented the name Sam 'n Henry, Gosden and Correll had to come up with a new name. They chose Amos 'n Andy because the names were short, easy to remember, and euphonious.³

Amos 'n' Andy

Their first show aired as Amos 'n Andy on March 19, 1928 through NBC. NBC has been around since the beginning of networking, If you'd like to learn more about NBC go to. the history of NBC The two main characters, Amos 'n' Andy, were two Afro-American men who had moved North and were acclimating themselves to Northern life. They differed from Sam 'n' Henry in the kind of business they were running and the name of the lodge they belonged to, but the main idea stayed the same.⁴ Characters names changed and many new ones were created.
In the first few episodes of the show many thought that the two actors were African Americans. It never crossed anyone's mind that they were two white actors. Gosden and Correll had done some vaudeville of the time and had seen many of the blackface minstrels of the time, but had never played Sam 'n' Henry on vaudeville. So, consequently no one knew who was doing this show. In an interview with Charles Correll he commented when asked if he thought people knew, that "In the beginning I know darn well that they didn't". He went further to say that "even the colored people thought we were colored".⁵ No one knew who was playing these men. Correll mentioned in the interview that when they were at WGN as Sam 'n' Henry that "for some time even our own people WGN didn't know who was doing Sam 'n' Henry . We did it in a hotel room". ⁶ There were many other characters that came in and out of the show, but the two constants were of course Amos 'n' Andy. Gosden and Correll played almost all of the other characters with help from one of their secretaries for a few of the women's parts. Soon enough though, everyone knew that Amos 'n' Andy were played by two white actors, only one of whom was Southern--Gosden.⁷

Controversy

Now that people knew who the people were behind the speakers, some controversy arose. Today we know the cliche of Amos 'n' Andy as another blackface show of the first half of the century. Today, the show could very well have been considered racist, and back then that question came about. The biggest problem arose in the Afro-American community.⁸ Some Afro-Americans loved the show, supported it. The rest found the show racist, demeaning, and stereoptyping. Gosden was the one of the pair from the South. Correll called the dialect they used for their characters as a "Southern dialect, not a colored dialect. There's no such thing". ⁹ The two never meant their show to be a racist one. They always made sure to use the word colored instead of "nigger" unless it was between characters and that was how they addressed each other.
It obviously wasn't seen as racist by most because it ran nationwide for 32 years and became a TV show for a few years, except using black actors. Gosden and Correll even made an appearance at a large rally for a very popular Afro-American magazine, The Defender.¹⁰ The men made a point to just portray the characters as they were and not to over-do it. Everyone knew someone like one of the characters on the show. The men did not try to make a black man more powerful than he could have been at the time. They placed the characters in their places in society, but helped them by recognizing that they were there and doing just fine. One man feels that "folks like Amos 'n' Andy had a helluva lot to do with changing people's feelings towards blacks. They deserve their place in history as much as any athlete or politician. It is a shame that they are now looked upon with shame by the very people they helped pave the way for". ¹¹

Popularity

    Amos 'n' Andy became popular very fast because it was one of the first radio shows that was good and had a large appeal. It jumped around different time slots, at one point doing the show twice a day to satisfy the whole country. A time was finally decided on--10pm. It came on then all over the country. The only problem was that this fifteen minute show was so popular that people wouldn't go out at night. Consequently movie theatres would stop whatever was playing at 10pm, pipe the radio show through the speakers, play Amos 'n' Andy , then return to what had been playing before. Stores began piping in the show, as did hotel lobbies. It was the only way people could keep their customers.¹²
     The show itself was responsible for a whole range of expressions that people would use, which is the sign of any good show. A couple were "check and double check", "'repression" (as opposed to depression). It also proved its worth by being such a long running show. Correll in his interview said "we were the last show I think to leave the air outside of news broadcasts, ya know, and disk jockey shows".¹³
      The show did lose some of its popularity in 1937, so the show changed sponsors from Pepsodent to Campbell's Soup and changed from NBC to CBS. Their ratings didn't jump back up, so the men moved the show to California from Chicago and began to hire black actors to play the incidental parts. They also hired more writers. ¹⁴ They brought up the class of some of the incidental characters as they became more visible in society where people could relate to them. Their major popularity returned in full force in 1943 after they went off the air for 8 months. They returned to NBC with the sponsor of Rinso Laundry detergent. They now only did the show once a week for a half an hour. They now allowed an audience in their studio.¹⁵
     All these changes brought back what people loved. Even when the radio show was made into a TV show from '51 to '53, people liked the radio show better. Amos 'n' Andy's popularity was immediate, it continued through the "'repression" with their daily jokes about it, and went on making the nation laugh for another twenty years.

Works Cited
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