Kay Kyser 1905–1985
Nash County, Nash County, North Carolina
Marker Inscription
Kay Kyser 1905 1985. Bandleader, radio & TV personality, and host of the "Kollege of Musical Knowledge," 1938-1950. Childhood home of "Ol' Perfesser" was 50 yds. S.
Erected by North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources
The Story
Kay Kyser, the self-styled "Ol' Perfesser," turned a dance band into a national sensation as host of radio's "Kollege of Musical Knowledge" from 1938 to 1950, a quiz-and-music show that later moved to television. His childhood home stood just 50 yards south of this marker. He was among the entertainers who defined the golden age of American broadcasting.
Why it matters
His career captures the rise of radio and early television as the shared culture of mid-century America.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Kay Kyser
Related events
- · Kollege of Musical Knowledge
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
Operation Dixie
Nash County, NC
In 1946 Black "leaf house" workers who graded and processed tobacco in eastern North Carolina organized to demand better pay and conditions, casting the region's first pro-union vote at a factory just west of here. The drive was part of Operation Dixie, the postwar labor campaign to unionize the South. Historians see these worker mobilizations as an early seedbed for the civil rights movement that followed.
Rocky Mount Mills
Nash County, NC
Begun in 1818 on the falls of the Tar River, Rocky Mount Mills was the second cotton mill established in North Carolina, harnessing water power to spin the region's cotton. Union forces burned the mill in 1863 during the Civil War, but it was quickly rebuilt and returned to production. The mill anchored one of the state's earliest industrial communities.
Knights of Labor
Tarboro, NC
Between 1886 and 1890 Black farmworkers in this region joined the Knights of Labor, the era's largest and most inclusive labor organization, and hosted a state convention here in 1890. Their organizing fed directly into the Fusion movement, the biracial coalition of Populists and Republicans that briefly won power in 1890s North Carolina. It was a rare moment of interracial political alliance in the Gilded Age South.
Hackney Wagon Company
Wilson, NC
When Wilson still moved on wooden wheels, the Hackney Wagon Company kept the region rolling. Founded in 1903, its nearby factory turned out farm and delivery wagons by the tens of thousands, reaching a peak of some 15,000 a year. It was part of the industrial boom that carried the tobacco-belt South into the twentieth century, just before the automobile remade American roads.