Dema Harshbarger (September 8, 1884 — February 20, 1964) was an American businesswoman, concert promoter, and talent manager.
Early life Dema E. Harshbarger was born in Abingdon, Illinois, one of the seven children of Richard Henry Harshbarger and Sarah Belle Lewis Harshbarger.Dema E. Harshbarger, "My Own Story" Green Book Magazine (October 1919): 20-22. She survived polio and rheumatic fever in her youth.Hedda Hopper, "There'll Never Be Another" Los Angeles Times (February 24, 1964): 62. via Newspapers.com She attended Knox College.The Arrow of Pi Beta Phi (1908): 399. Soon after college, she went traveling with her music teacher Mrs. Parry; the two were among the rescued passengers in the wreck of the RMS Slavonia off the coast of Portugal."Our Young People: Shipwrecked but Saved" The Herald of Gospel Liberty (February 8, 1910): 146.
Career Harshbarger started her career at the Century Lyceum Bureau in Chicago, booking lecturers and entertainers in small towns in Illinois and Indiana."She Made $75 Her First Week in Booking Field" Lyceum Magazine (November 1919): 26.
From 1919 to 1921 she and Jessie B. Hall ran the Fine Arts Bureau in Chicago."Fine Arts Bureau Expands" Lyceum Magazine (September 1919): 43."Bureau of Fine Arts" Music News (January 28, 1921): 8. In 1921 she left Hall to become co-owner of Harrison and Harshbarger, a Chicago concert booking agency."New Chicago Firm Books Fifty Concerts for Marshall" Musical America (April 2, 1921): 30. Their first exclusive client was tenor Charles Marshall,"Harrison and Harshbarger" Music News (March 4, 1921): 12. and they helped to develop the "Organized-Audience Plan", a subscription model for entertainment bookings in smaller cities.James M. Doering, The Great Orchestrator: Arthur Judson and American Arts Management (University of Illinois Press 2013): 78. In the 1920s, Harshbarger was co-founder (with Ward French) and president of the National Civic Music Association.Christopher Sampson, "Applauding a Movement: Eighty Years of Civic Music" Brown County Civic Music Association."Association Brings Noted Artists Here" Battle Creek Enquirer (January 1, 1925): 98. via Newspapers.com "Through her service," explained a California newspaper in 1932, "more than one and a half million people in the forty-eight states are served with musical attractions.""Founder of Civic Music Service is to Visit Modesto" Modesto News Herald (March 2, 1932): 5. via Newspapers.com
Harshbarger sold her agency to NBC,"Stars are Not Self-Made; Credit Goes to the Audience" Nevada State Journal (March 15, 1938): 7. via Newspapers.com moved to California, and was made head of the network's Artists' Bureau in 1936. She became manager and press agent of Hedda Hopper,"How Hedda Hopper Became a Columnist" Chicago Tribune (September 26, 1952): 22. via Newspapers.com and was frequently mentioned in Hopper's gossip column.Hedda Hopper, From Under My Hat (Graymalkin Media 2017). "Cinema: The Gossipist" Time (July 28, 1947).
Personal life Dema Harshbarger was a lesbian.William J. Mann, Behind the Screen: How Gays and Lesbians Shaped Hollywood, 1910-1969 (Viking 2001): 153-154. – via Internet Archive. Gregory Woods, Homintern: How Gay Culture Liberated the Modern World (Yale University Press 2017). She was known for wearing tailored suits, bowties, and hats.William J. Mann, How to Be a Movie Star: Elizabeth Taylor in Hollywood (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt 2009): 55. She lived in La Habra Heights, California, where she raised avocados.Diana Wedner, "Realm of Creatures, Comforts" Los Angeles Times (November 25, 2007). She died in 1964, aged 79, in Los Angeles, California.
In popular culture Dema Harshbarger was played by Joyce Van Patten in the 1985 television film about Hedda Hopper and Louella Parsons, Malice in Wonderland.
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