Harry Spencer (2)

American recording artist (born February 14, 1875 in Washington, DC – died August 29, 1943 in Washington, DC). Brother of recording artist Len Spencer, for whose talent agency, "Len Spencer's Lyceum" in New York City, he worked as a booking agent. Between 1900 and 1910, Spencer recorded mostly for Columbia, but also cut a few titles for Zonophone (before Oct. 1900) and Leeds Records (2) (1906). Apart from comic monologues (often playing immigrant characters named Schultz or Casey), he also specialized in recitations like "Lincoln's Speech at Gettysburg" or "McKinley's Speech of Acceptance." His greatest success was a rube routine called "The Arkansaw Traveller." In addition, he performed with his older brother Len Spencer as part of The Imperial Minstrels. After his brother Len's premature death in 1914, Harry Spencer unsuccessfully tried to run his brother's talent agency in New York City himself, but it failed in mid-1915. After that, Harry seems to have left the music industry. At his September 1918 draft meeting, he gave his occupation as "special patrolman" for a furniture company in Washington, DC. The 1920 U.S. Census lists him as a private investigator in New York City, living with his Italian wife Gazella in a boarding house in Manhattan. Unfortunately, Harry Spencer spent the last years of his life in a psychiatric hospital, the St. Elizabeth Hospital in Washington, DC.