Ethel Harper

Ethel Ernestine Harper (September 17, 1903 – March 31, 1979) was an African-American educator, performer, and community figure whose career spanned teaching, Broadway, recording, and advertising. Born in Greensboro, Alabama, the youngest child and only daughter of Wiley W. Harper and Emma Louise Jones Harper, both of whom were educators, Harper was orphaned at nine years old and relocated from Selma to Birmingham to live with an older brother and his wife. She completed her secondary education at Industrial High School and trained as a teacher at the State Teachers College in Montgomery, the institution now known as Alabama State University.

Harper spent twelve years teaching in Alabama before pursuing a performance career in New York. During her time as an educator, she taught at Northport, Alabama, offered private music lessons, and returned to Industrial High School, where she organized the Girls' Minstrel, an annual musical and theatrical showcase. At Parker High School in Birmingham, she led a student musical ensemble called the Ethel Harper Rhythm Boys, which toured Alabama by chartered bus. Among its members was Sonny Blount, who later became known as jazz composer Sun Ra. In 1932, Harper was elected president of the Birmingham City Federation of Colored Women's Clubs.

She arrived in New York in 1936 and won the Apollo Theatre's Amateur Hour that same year. She subsequently appeared in Connie's Hot Chocolates of '37 alongside the Melody Maids. Harper made her Broadway debut in 1939, appearing in two productions that year: The Hot Mikado, a swing adaptation of the Gilbert and Sullivan operetta featuring Bill "Bojangles" Robinson, and Swingin' The Dream. In 1942, she performed in Harlem Cavalcade, and during World War II she toured with the Four Ginger Snaps, entertaining troops and making recordings. By the mid-1950s, Harper was touring the United States and Europe with the Negro Follies, a musical troupe comprising twenty-five singers and dancers.

In 1950, Harper auditioned for and won the role of the Aunt Jemima advertising character for Quaker Oats. In that capacity she made personal appearances at pancake festivals, schools, and hospitals through 1958. She was the last individual model for the character's image; after 1958, the Aunt Jemima likeness became a composite rather than a representation of any single person.

Following the conclusion of her Aunt Jemima work, Harper moved to Morris County, New Jersey, where she joined the Morris Area Girl Scout Council in 1958. Over nine years she held multiple roles there, including director, program coordinator, staff advisor, and committee chair, before transferring to the Girl Scout Council of Greater New York. She retired from Scouting in 1969. Beginning in 1962, Harper taught black history courses in Morristown. She also worked as a community outreach worker at Wetmore Towers, a senior citizens housing development, helped sponsor an annual Meals on Wheels benefit, hosted a radio talk show titled Youth Speaks Out; Age Speaks Out; Are You Listening?, and organized a performing arts showcase called Extravaganza of the Arts at Morristown High School. She was active in the Morristown chapter of the NAACP.

Harper died of a heart attack on March 31, 1979, while driving in Morristown, at the age of 75. Her papers, which include a self-published autobiography from 1970, are held at the North Jersey History and Genealogy Center at the Morristown Library.