Dr. Morris

Abstract

This study explores the historical significance of the interfaces between Black religion, and media-based popular culture from 1920 until 1933 by examining religious race records. Although a noteworthy aspect of Afro-American cultural life during the early twentieth century, the contributions to Black culture of the numerous Gospel recordings by preachers, singing evangelists, and Gospel quartets during the period have gone underexplored. Not purely evangelistic, these novel religious commodities were the products of record companies trying to find their niche and remain profitable in an ever-competitive sound recording market. In turn, this brought income and celebrity to pioneering preachers such as Reverends J.C. Burnett, J.M. Gates, W.M. Mosley and F.W. McGee, and their gospel recordings provide insights into the ethos of the historical context in which they emerged. This dissertation analyzes the race records industry through the careers of these exemplars utilizing the interactive framework pioneered by a few leading cultural historians that avoids rigid determinism. Rather, it accounts for how both material conditions and human subjectivity shaped their creative expressions and audience reception. Drawing on (1) social conflict theory from the perspective of Antonio Gramsci’s concept of hegemony; (2) the semiotic technique developed by French philosopher Roland Barthes; (3) data gathered from relevant scholarly literature; and (4) original sources from archival research—this dissertation asserts that religious race records were neither popular culture for the people nor culture purely from the people. Instead, they were a constantly-shifting site of ideological struggle that represented negotiations and nuanced power relations between artists and producers and class debates within Afro-Protestantism over cultural authority within the Black Church. These modern religious commodities that separated the sounds of Black religious culture from their visual point of reference, were nothing less than transformative. In the process , providing a new cultural reference point for cultural authority, communication, and shared meaning that shaped Black religious culture into the future.