President Harry S. Truman (Wikimedia Commons)
Harry Truman grew up in Kansas City, where he never missed a vaudeville show playing at the Orpheum or the Grand Opera House. Sons of German Jewish immigrants who originally settled in New York City, the Marx Brothers moved to Chicago in 1910, so they were frequently onstage in Kansas City, where young Harry Truman saw and loved them.
When Harry Truman became President of the United States in 1945, there were thousands of Europeans displaced after World War II who had no place to go.
Groucho Marx (Wikimedia Commons)
Prompted by his strong feelings about these immigrants, Groucho Marx wrote to Truman, encouraging him to make a stronger effort to open America’s borders to re-settle the refugees. In his correspondence with Groucho, Truman concluded, “Your ancestors and mine came to this country to escape just such conditions. There is no place for people to go now unless we can arrange it.” Groucho’s words echo into the present, as refugees still struggle to find a safe haven in America.
Vaudeville left its mark on a President and helped to shape history long after its stages went dark.
Read the full story from The National Archives.
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