Ted Lewis Museum

Born Theodore Leopold Friedman in 1890, the legend goes that a young Ted was unimpressed with the family business (a textile bazaar on Main Street in Circleville) and would spend his days sneaking into minstrel shows and learning clarinet from a local African-American barber, Cricket Smith. He left with one of those touring troupes and eventually landed in New York City. By 1917, he had his own cabaret on Broadway.

The Ted Lewis Museum is a shrine to the fairy tale that followed. Lewis would go on to sell millions of records, bridge the gap between vaudeville and television, star in movies about his life and put a face on the commercialization of “jazz.” What’s most intriguing is just how popular and powerful Lewis was during his time; at the height of the '20s, he was the highest-paid performer in the nation. At every show, Lewis would announce he was from Circleville, the “capital of the world.” He was a song and dance man until the day he died in 1971, when his wife of 56 years, Adah Lewis, brought his entire collection of memorabilia back to his home.

There are certainly some questions in Lewis’ storied career. He began in a duo with his brother staging a play called “The Jailbird and the Coon,” wherein Lewis wore blackface. But in moving to New York he was instrumental in integrating African-American musicians to his company — most notably Eddie Chester, who would mimic his moves onstage in a hit song called “Me and My Shadow.” (Per the museum’s curator, Lewis adopted Chester as his son.) Still, it’s hard to diminish Lewis’ benevolence and dedication to the artform when browsing his timeline. Museums like this continuously evolve so that we can learn from and competently question our past.