Weber, Joseph Morris
(11 August 1867–10 May 1942)
- Paul Distler
Extract
Weber, Joseph Morris (11 August 1867–10 May 1942), vaudeville comedian and producer, was born Joseph Moishe Weber in New York City, the son of Abraham Weber, a schechter (kosher butcher and lay officer of the synagogue), and Gertrude Enoch. As the seventeenth child in this Jewish immigrant family from Poland (via a stopover in Birmingham, England, where the family learned English), Weber began at age seven working part-time in a cigarette factory while still attending Public School 42 on Allen Street in New York’s Lower East Side. His life changed dramatically the following year when he literally bumped into another immigrant child, ...
