Emerson and Baldwin: Vaudeville with a Vengeance

Eddie Emerson (Edward William McQuaid) and Jerry Baldwin had a comedy/ magic/ juggling act from around 1907 until the demise of vaudeville in 1932. Billing themselves as “Emerson and Baldwin: Vaudeville with a Vengeance”, they threw everything but the kitchen sink into the act: Emerson did blackface** and let himself get slapped around by Baldwin, Baldwin did close magic with cards, they both did club juggling, and a number of extravagant illusions such as a shattered plate that reconstituted itself when shot out of a gun, and a magical plant that grew up from the stage into the flies of the theatre. This act took them all the way to the Palace and all over the globe (they were also favorites in the U.K. and Australia). Their most lasting legacy was comedy magician Roy Benson, who was Eddie Emerson’s son but also seems to have been influenced by Baldwin. For more on these gents, go here.

To find out more about  the history of vaudeville, consult No Applause, Just Throw Money: The Book That Made Vaudeville Famous, available at Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and wherever nutty books are sold.

**Obligatory Disclaimer: It is the official position of this blog that Caucasians-in-Blackface is NEVER okay. It was bad then, and it’s bad now. We occasionally show images depicting the practice, or refer to it in our writing, because it is necessary to tell the story of American show business, which like the history of humanity, is a mix of good and bad.