The Chicago Defender

            The  Chicago Defender , a widely circulated black newspaper founded in 1905 by Robert S. Abbott, was hugely influential in motivating a vast population of southern blacks to migrate into urban centers and in bringing about changes in the blues style and culture. [1]

             Jon Spencer argues that the  Chicago Defender  was the Great Migration’s “moses,” as it attracted rural southerners to the north in unprecedented numbers. Indeed, black southerners were aware of the appeal of Chicago and the city lifestyle well before the Defender was founded; however, the Defender was pivotal in specifically articulating the goal of migration as an aspiration for an entire race. [2]

             Spencer also outlines how the  Defender  wrought changes on the blues itself through advertisements and reviews of blues recordings and performances. He illustrates how the paper created a mystic, down-home appeal for blues music by co-opting blues images and language and effectively converting them into caricatures and superficial vaudeville. [3]   Spencer argues that this resulted in a diminishing of the blues' rural “residue;” it certainly played a major role in propelling the blues’ transition from a rural, vernacular style into an urban, popular one.

      Bibliography

      [1]  Wald, Escaping the Delta, 50; Jon Michael Spencer, “The Diminishing Rural Residue of Folklore in City and Urban Blues, Chicago 1915-1950,” in Black Music Research Journal, 12, no. 1 (Spring 1992): 29.       [2]  Spencer, “Diminishing Rural Residue,” 29.       [3]  Ibid., 36.