Harry Pace Founds Black Swan Records, First Black-Owned Major Record Label

Harry Pace founded Black Swan Records in New York in 1921, the first Black-owned record company to achieve major commercial success. Named for opera singer Elizabeth Taylor Greenfield ('The Black Swan'), the label recorded Ethel Waters, Alberta Hunter, and other Black artists who faced exclusion from white-owned labels. Black Swan represented an attempt to build Black economic institutions in the cultural sphere and to ensure Black artists retained more control over their recordings. It was driven out of business by 1924 when larger white labels began targeting the 'race records' market.