QSL postcard for W6QUT signed by Freeman Gosden
date: label: date made
content: before 1938
label: Associated Date
content: February 7, 1938
name: label: Associated Name
content: Gosden, Freeman
label: maker
content: Gosden, Freeman
notes: label: Description (Brief)
content: Postcard (QSL card) for the amateur radio station W6QUT signed by radio operator and Amos n' Andy star Freeman Gosden. The card was to fellow ham radio operator John Overcash Shaw of W4EYF in Charlotte, North Carolina. The card is printed with an image of the W6QUT call sign and "Beverly Hills / California" in yellow over clouds in a blue sky. The back bears Gosden's signature and information about the radio communication between the two correspondents.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Donor Jackie O'Neill explained: "My father was an amateur radio operator and was in contact with Freeman Gosden, who played Amos on the old radio program Amos and Andy. After the radio communication, my father and Mr. Gosden exchanged their ham radio postcards, as was the custom. Mr. Gosden signed his postcard." Postcards such as this are called QSL cards by collectors for their association with the Q code "QSL" sent out by operators asking listeners to confirm transmission. Amateur operators took pride in sending and returning such cards, as well as collecting them. The cards were used by early broadcasters to gauge the range and effectiveness of their transmissions and operators often took pride in displaying rare or far-flung postmarks, not to mention celebrity signatures such as the one on this card. Gosden was an active amateur radio operator and the existence of several of these cards in private collections today suggests that he was happy to connect with fans and hobbyists alike at the height of his fame.
label: Description (Brief)
content: Gosden, with his partner Charles Correll, was creator and star of the Amos 'n' Andy program, one of the most popular and influential radio series of all time. Gosden portrayed Amos as well as other characters in the situation comedy that focused on the misadventures of two African American friends and business partners in the Fresh Air Taxi Company. The series drew on the comic traditions of vaudeville and blackface minstrelsy, with the two white leads portraying numerous black characters while employing exaggerated dialect and stereotypical characterization.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The series aired from 1928 to 1960 on the NBC and CBS radio networks, was adapted to television with black actors as The Amos 'n Andy Show (CBS, 1951-1955), and Gosden and Correll appeared in blackface as the characters in the 1930 Amos 'n' Andy film Check and Double Check. The show was enormously popular, becoming the first nationally successful radio comedy program and making Gosden and Correll among the most famous and wealthy entertainers of the era.
label: Description (Brief)
content: The Amos and Andy characters were based on minstrel show stereotypes - Amos was naïve and simpleminded, Andy lazy, conniving, and pretentious - but the series was a rare popular culture representation of urban black life in an era marked by nation-wide racial prejudice and the Great Migration. In its original radio run, the show garnered a mixed reception from the African American community, inspiring sharp criticism and calls to boycott from AME Zion Church Bishop W. J. Walls and Pittsburgh Courier publisher Robert L. Vann, among others, while many others enjoyed the show and praised it for its complex portrait of contemporary black life.
label: Location
content: Currently not on view
place: label: place made
content: United States: California, Beverly Hills
label: Associated Place
content: United States: North Carolina, Charlotte
topic: label: Subject
content: Radio
label: Subject
content: Mail
setName: label: See more items in
content: Culture and the Arts: Entertainment
label: See more items in
content: Popular Entertainment
dataSource: label: Data Source
content: National Museum of American History
identifier: label: ID Number
content: 2021.0129.01
label: accession number
content: 2021.0129
label: catalog number
content: 2021.0129.01
objectType: label: Object Name
content: postcard
physicalDescription: label: Physical Description
content: paper (overall material)
label: Physical Description
content: printed (overall production method/technique)
label: Measurements
content: overall: 3 1/2 in x 5 in; 8.89 cm x 12.7 cm