Whitman Sisters

[7][8] The sisters were taught by their father to sing religious songs and to dance, in order to accompany him on evangelical tours.

[9] Researcher Nadine George-Graves wrote that the sisters were the highest paid act in the Vaudeville circuit.

Even after Vaudeville was no longer in its prime, they continued to perform in theaters and churches around the nation and were admired by all types of audience members.

"[11] According to George-Graves, a typical show during their period of greatest popularity, from about 1909 to 1920, included "jubilee songs and coon shouts, cakewalks and breakdowns, comedians, midgets, cross-dressers, beautiful dancing girls, pickaninnies, a jazz band."

George-Graves wrote:Mabel handled all the bookings, Essie designed and executed costumes, Alberta composed music, and Alice, having won cakewalk contests from a child, was billed at the star dancer.

Their fast-paced shows, based on a variety format of songs, dances and comedy skits, included a chorus line and jazz band.

[13] The surviving sisters were interviewed in the 1960s by Jean and Marshall Stearns, who included a chapter about the Whitmans in their work Jazz Dance.

[15] Their full role was uncovered by the efforts of African American Theater Studies scholar Nadine George-Graves, who analyzed a wealth of local and regional publications,[9] and published her findings in 2000 as The Royalty of Negro Vaudeville: The Whitman Sisters and the Negotiation of Race, Gender and Class in African American Theatre, 1900–1940.