Scope and arrangement
The Max Morath New York Clipper collection contains four volumes of New York Clipper newspaper reviews of vaudeville acts between 1907 and 1919 and an alphabetical index of performers and acts that correspond with the reviews. The collection was compiled by Morath in 1966 while researching vaudeville for a television variety show that was never produced.
The collection contains two indexes: a book index and a card index, both of which list performers and acts alphabetically and cross-reference one or more numbered pages in the four volumes. The book index is arranged into seven broad categories (Sing and Talk, Sing, Sing and Dance, Dance, Play (musical instruments), and Variety Acts), which are further broken down into subdivisions, such as performing songwriters, Negro performers, juveniles, actors, comedians, magicians, banjo, accordion, pantomimes, midgets, shadow-graphists, ventriloquists, strongmen, operatic singing, singing with piano, female solo, man and female team, and burlesque acts.
Unlike the book index, the card index is only arranged alphabetically by performer or act and not into specific categories or divisions.