Joseph E. Howard papers
Joseph E. Howard continued to do shows as a vaudevillian and public performer in his later years. This undated photo appears to be from the 1950s, just before Howard's death while making a curtain call in 1961(Box 10 Folder 3).
Collection dates: 1895-2009 bulk (bulk 1947-1966)
The Joseph E. Howard papers consists primarily of his sheet music and correspondence. Most of the sheet music comes from the early 20th century, and there is some music written and composed by other musicians. The correspondence mostly relates to business matters, including Howard’s eponymous publishing house and copyright issues. It contains a considerable amount written to or by his last wife, Miriam, concerning Howard’s estate after his death; it also includes some letters by his sons, Joseph Jr. and Lionel. A few years after Howard’s death in 1961, Miriam remarried to Charles Kirschner of the Cincinnati area. There is some ephemera and correspondence of the Kirschner family and of Ben Gillespie, Miriam’s son from a previous relationship. In fact, much of the material from the late 1960s and 1970s relates to Gillespie.
Included in correspondence is a letter by Jacqueline Kennedy and a couple of short letters from Ed Sullivan giving thanks for a performance or appearance, as well as various letters from Congressmen and fellow composers and musicians. The photographs are mainly of Howard performing and Howard’s wives and sons. There are also shots from the 1947 motion picture “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,” based on Howard’s life. Scripts are typed drafts or revisions of many of the plays that Howard wrote music for, including “The Time, the Place, and the Girl.” In addition to greeting card artwork and postcards, ephemera consists of performance ephemera and personal items. The financial series includes copyright claims, receipts, and royalty statements. It also contains appraisals of the estate of one of Joseph’s later wives, Mary Howard, as well as documents relating to Joseph’s death.
Joseph E. Howard (1878-1961) was a skilled composer and vaudevillian. Born in New York in 1878, he ran away from home around the age of seven after the death of his mother. He ended up in St. Louis, where he took to singing and performing on the streets to earn money. He received a break as a teenager when a vaudeville group invited him to travel with them. At the time of his death, Howard had been married nine different times. Many of his wives were fellow performers, including his first wife, Ida Emerson, who helped write and perform Howard’s most famous song, “Hello! My Baby.” Sometimes his marriages ended in divorce and other times in death. He had at least two sons, Joseph Jr. and Lionel, and one daughter, Josephine.
In addition to “Hello! My Baby” (1899), Howard’s most well-known songs include “Goodbye My Lady Love” (1904), and “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now” (1909). He also composed the official state song of Montana in 1945. A motion picture based on Howard’s life, also titled “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now,” was released in 1947 starring Mark Stevens and June Haver. Soon after the release of the movie, Howard was sued by his former assistant, Harry Orlob, for stealing the lyrics to the song “I Wonder Who’s Kissing Her Now.” They settled by agreeing to remove Howard’s name from the song, though it is still often associated with him.
The second part of his career began in 1939 when he collaborated with Beatrice Kay to produce a successful radio show, “Gay Nineties Revue.” He wrote an autobiography titled
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