Will Rogers (1879-1935)
The First Native American Superstar*

Will Rogers was among the most popular (and most powerful) media personalities of the 1920s and early 1930s. His was a household name and his voice was instantly identifiable. When he died in an airplane crash in 1935, thousands turned out to mourn.

Rogers' family were Old Settler Cherokee. That is, they were Cherokee who had moved to what is now Oklahoma before the forced migration known as the "Trail of Tears." Rogers family were ranchers, and very prosperous until the Dawes Act of 1887 stripped them and most other Native Americans of most of their land holdings**, impoverishing the family.

Rogers dropped out of school in tenth grade to become a cowboy. He had been taught lassoing and rope tricks by one of his family's ex-slaves (more on that later), and he perfected this art to such a level that he was able to earn a living doing lasso and rope tricks, first for the Wild West shows that were popular at the end of the 19th century, and then for vaudeville shows in the early years of the 20th century. You can see Rogers demonstrate some of his lasso skills, including probably his most famous, roping all of a horse's hooves in a single throw, in this short video taken from the 1922 two reeler The Roping Fool. Note that this was a silent film and the narration has been added.

 

At a Wild West show, roping can stand on its own but it's not terribly interesting to watch a vaudeville act where a guy just gets up on stage and does a few rope tricks. So Rogers began to develop comedy commentary to go along with his tricks. He would stand on stage, do tricks and tell stories. As his act developed, the stories began to become increasingly topical. He was booked on the Keith Vaudeville Circuit, so he traveled all over the country. When he arrived in town he would chat with locals and read the local newspaper and then work bits of local color and news into his act and comment on local politics in a down-home, folksy voice.

Rogers increasing fan base brought him national attention and in 1915 he began to appear on Broadway in the Ziegfeld's Follies. The Ziegfeld Follies was a very famous variety show. It was basically a high brow form of vaudeville for the wealthy classes. However, appearing on Broadway and at other major venues meant that Rogers' material could no longer be local. Instead, he had to comment on national level issues and politics. Most of his act was ad libbed. He'd open by telling the audience that all he knew was what he read in the papers and go from there. He wasn't the first political comedian. But, he was the first with a truly national audience. He was certainly the forerunner of today's late night show hosts.

Rogers' success with Ziegfeld soon drew him into other media. Starting in 1918 he made a series of silent films for Samuel Goldwyn, though these weren't particularly successful (but there were a lot of them) and he began to write a newspaper column for The New York Times. His newspaper columns, which became daily in 1926 were carried in more than 500 newspapers (there were a lot of newspapers in those days) and reached audiences numbering in the tens of millions. Rogers published books of humor, but probably his biggest successes were his radio broadcasts. From 1929 until his death in 1935 he had a weekly radio appearance on The Gulf Headliners one of the most listened to shows in the country. As with his earlier work, most of his performance was a monologue. He'd set an alarm clock to signal the end of his segment of the show and walk off when it rang, sometimes in mid-sentence. Here's a clip from one of Rogers' radio broadcasts. You can get a real feel for the ad libbed nature of the performance and the folksy style as well as a taste of Rogers' political leanings.

 

Rogers' silent movies were not very well received. But, starting in 1929 he began to appear in sound pictures which showcased his talent and proved very popular and he appeared with numerous stars of the era. In all, Rogers appeared in more than 50 movies including more than 20 feature films. He was one of the biggest box office draws of the early 1930s.

Rogers legacy on race and ethnicity is extremely complex. On the one hand, he always claimed his Cherokee identity. One of his most famous lines was “Course my folks way back didn’t come over on the Mayflower—they were just standing there when it docked. As a matter of fact, the biggest mistake my ancestors made was lettin’ them land.” Rogers talked frequently and in detail about government mistreatment of Native Americans. On the other hand, he made his living appearing as a cowboy and generally reinforcing the myth of the white cowboy. He did not get along with other Native Americans appearing in Hollywood films nor did he join their trade association. Beyond that, he was absolutely a racist. This was most evident in a 1934 broadcast when he used the N word three times. Even in the racist America of the 1930s, this was unacceptable. But, called to account both by Black organizations and the broader US community, Rogers doubled down. Not only did he fail to apologize, he went off on a rambling monologue about being raised by "darkies." This was met with calls for boycotts of his sponsors and his films. It's worth pausing a moment to note that Rogers racism was consistent with his background. The "Old Settler" Cherokee were deeply influenced by Southern culture (and often not much liked by other Cherokee). Rogers' grandfather had owned two slaves. He was a signer of the Treaty of New Echota in which some Cherokee pledged to give up all lands east of the Mississippi for $5,000,000. And, he was killed for his part in that affair. At any event, the negative publicity surrounding Rogers in late 1934 was probably one reason he decided to fly to Alaska with a famous but also famously erratic pilot named Wiley Post. Post and Rogers both died when their plane crashed on August 15, 1935, about 20 miles outside of Point Barrow, Alaska.

Rogers' son, Will Rogers Jr. (1911-1993) was a Democratic US Representative from California in 1943 and 1944. He resigned to serve in the army in World War II. He was wounded in the Battle of the Bulge and received a Bronze Star. After the war, he ran for US Senator from California but lost. However, he held various appointed political positions until the late 1960s. For all of his career, he was a fighter against fascism, both in the US and abroad, and for the rights of Native Americans.

Today, Will Rogers seems lost to history. The airport in Oklahoma City is named for him. And, there is a statue of him on the Texas Tech campus that people decorate before football games. But I wonder how many Tech students could actually tell you who he was. There is even a mathematical phenomenon named after him: the Will Rogers Paradox or Phenomenon. The Will Rogers Phenomenon occurs when the result of moving some members of a mathematical set to a different mathematical set raises the average value of both sets. This comes from a famous Rogers quote: "When the Oakies left Oklahoma and moved to California it raised the I.Q. of both states." I'm not sure that quote has aged so well but Rogers was one of the most quoted American writers of the first half of the 20th century. And here's a really simple Easter Egg for you. Just look up and copy down six Will Rogers quotes. Be careful, there are lots of inauthentic quotes out there. Make an effort to determine the authenticity of your quotes. To submit your paper, make sure it is in msword format, and title it Will Rogers and upload it to Canvas Practice. I'll give you an additional five points of extra credit added to your first exam grade. You must submit your paper before exam two for it to count! Please note that this is an easter egg for students who bother to read down this far in optional material. This only works if you don't tell your classmates about it and don't ask me about it in class (if you do I'll deny any knowledge). It won't show up officially in gradebook but the points will be added to your grade. If you want to talk to me about it, please either come by my office or send me an email.

*There were certainly well known Natives before Rogers, but their fame was a war leaders and as captives. Geronimo's name and parts of his story were very widely known. And people like Chief Iron Tail gained international fame by appearing, often unwillingly, in Wild West shows. BTW, Iron Tail was the model for the Indian Head nickle. All such Natives were as much victims as they were stars. Rogers, on the other hand, was as much in control of his own fame as any other famous person.

**The basic idea of the Dawes Act was to terminate communal ownership of Native lands and limit the amount of land individual Natives could own to 160 acres. The goal was to allow white access to lands and, particularly to mineral rights for these lands, and even more particularly, in Oklahoma, to oil. But truly, even this wasn't enough. Native peoples still retained rights to land with oil. To limit the degree to which they could benefit, they were forced into custodianship arrangements with whites whereby the whites could capture most of the profit from Indian oil. But truly, even this wasn't enough. In the 1920s, numerous Osage were murdered so that whites could get control of the oil on their lands. This is documented in detail in Killers of the Flower Moon: the Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI by David Grann.

BTW, America's second Native Superstar? Jim Thorpe