Cal Stewart was a pioneer in vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 and early sound recordings. He is best remembered for his comic monologues in which he played "Uncle Josh" Weathersby, a resident of a mythical New England

New England

New England is a region in the northeastern corner of the United States consisting of the six states of Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Connecticut...

 farming town called "Punkin

Pumpkin

A pumpkin is a gourd-like squash of the genus Cucurbita and the family Cucurbitaceae . It commonly refers to cultivars of any one of the species Cucurbita pepo, Cucurbita mixta, Cucurbita maxima, and Cucurbita moschata, and is native to North America...

 Center."

Born in Charlotte County, Virginia

Charlotte County, Virginia

As of the census of 2000, there were 12,472 people, 4,951 households, and 3,435 families residing in the county. The population density was 26 people per square mile . There were 5,734 housing units at an average density of 12 per square mile...

 in 1856, Stewart spent his early life working in circuses, medicine shows and vaudeville to great acclaim as "Uncle Josh Weathersby from Way Down East". It was on the road that he befriended Mark Twain

Mark Twain

Samuel Langhorne Clemens , better known by his pen name Mark Twain, was an American author and humorist...

 and later Will Rogers

Will Rogers

William "Will" Penn Adair Rogers was an American cowboy, comedian, humorist, social commentator, vaudeville performer, film actor, and one of the world's best-known celebrities in the 1920s and 1930s....

, two men who shared similar wit in comedy.

Around 1897, Thomas Edison's studios

Edison Records

Edison Records was one of the earliest record labels which pioneered recorded sound and was an important player in the early recording industry.- Early phonographs before commercial mass produced records :...

 hired him to cut several cylinder recordings of his famous speeches and songs. They were well received by the public, and launched an entire series of recordings based on the Uncle Josh character. Stewart's trademark on these recordings are the easily recognizable laugh that precedes his speeches.

Best-selling recordings included “Uncle Josh’s Arrival in New York” (1898), “I’m Old But I’m Awfully Tough (Laughing Song)” (1898), “Jim Lawson’s Horse Trade With Deacon Witherspoon” (1901), “Uncle Josh’s Huskin’ Bee Dance” (1901) and “Uncle Josh Buys an Automobile” (1903).

Stewart continued recording on Edison, Columbia

Columbia Records

Columbia Records is an American record label, owned by Japan's Sony Music Entertainment, operating under the Columbia Music Group with Aware Records. It was founded in 1888, evolving from an earlier enterprise, the American Graphophone Company — successor to the Volta Graphophone Company...

, Victor

Victor Talking Machine Company

The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....

, and independent labels up until his death on December 7, 1919. He also wrote two books based on his monologues and performed in theaters across America with his wife and her brother and sister.

Stewart is represented on the 2007 compilation Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s

Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s

Actionable Offenses: Indecent Phonograph Recordings from the 1890s is a compilation of jokes and stories recorded to wax cylinders during the 1890s. At the time the recordings were made, they were considered indecent, and nearly all similar recordings from this era have been destroyed, often by law...

.

External links

• Cal Stewart cylinder recordings, from the Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
  Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project
  The Cylinder Preservation and Digitization Project is a free digital collection maintained by the University of California, Santa Barbara Libraries with streaming and downloadable versions of over 10,000 phonograph cylinders manufactured between 1893 and the mid 1920s.- History :The project began...
  
   at the University of California, Santa Barbara
  University of California, Santa Barbara
  The University of California, Santa Barbara, commonly known as UCSB or UC Santa Barbara, is a public research university and one of the 10 general campuses of the University of California system. The main campus is located on a site in Goleta, California, from Santa Barbara and northwest of Los...
  
   Library.
• Cal Stewart Fan Site (includes digitized version of his book)
• Discography of Cal Stewart on Victor Records
  Victor Talking Machine Company
  The Victor Talking Machine Company was an American corporation, the leading American producer of phonographs and phonograph records and one of the leading phonograph companies in the world at the time. It was headquartered in Camden, New Jersey....
  
  from the Encyclopedic Discography of Victor Recordings (EDVR)