Happy Women’s History Month! I have two amazing women to share with you. One a dancer, singer, actress, spy and civil right activist, and the other a librarian for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. 

Josephine Baker was born June 3, 1906, in St. Louis. In her teens, she was part of a vaudeville troupe and sailed to Paris in 1925. They opened Oct. 2 of that year in “La Revue Nègre” at Théâtre des Champs-Élysées when she was just 19.

Baker became an instant success. After the troupe’s tour in Europe, she broke her contract and returned to France in 1926. She was a star at the Folies Bergère, setting a high standard for her future acts. Baker was known for performing the Danse Sauvage, wearing little more than a skirt of strung-together artificial bananas.  

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Baker was the Roaring Twenties.

In 1927, she was the first black woman to star in a major motion picture, the French silent film “Siren of the Tropics.” Baker became the most successful American entertainer in France. Ernest Hemingway called her “the most sensational woman anyone ever saw.”

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But Baker wasn’t just an entertainer. In September 1939, when France declared war on Germany, the French military intelligence agency recruited Baker. She socialized with the Germans, charming them while secretly gathering information. She collected information on German activities, movement and locations. Then she smuggled sensitive information across the borders using methods like writing notes on her hands and arms, pinning notes inside her clothing and using invisible ink.

After the war, Baker returned to America, but she was not afraid to tackle serious subject matter. She refused to perform at segregated clubs, telling them to either desegregate or lose her. Most chose to desegregate. In 1963, she spoke at the March on Washington next to Martin Luther King Jr. Baker was the only official female speaker.

This is the CliffsNotes version of Baker’s life. If you want to learn more about this amazing woman, her memoir “Fearless and Free” was recently translated into English.

In more recent times, Rock and Roll Hall of Fame librarian Laura Maidens works to archive and catalogue the music world’s treasures. She found notes from Keith Richards in a French graphic novel in her first weeks of working there.

The library has an extensive collection of books, vinyl records, DVDs, CDs and other iconic memorabilia. And the library doesn’t just collect items relating to rock and roll. Maidens reports that the library/museum is interested in its roots from blues to folk to gospel.

To understand the roots of music is to understand how music today came to be.

I had a blast learning about these two women. I’m just finishing Baker’s memoir, and I’m definitely planning a trip to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame library.

Rylee Bogert works at Fraser Valley Library. She can be reached at rbogert@gcld.org.