Portrait of Ethel Waters

Birthday profile

Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters, American singer and actress (died 1977)

Born
October 31, 1896
Died
September 1, 1977
Zodiac sign
Scorpio
Birth year
1896

About Ethel Waters

Ethel Waters was an American singer and actress. Waters frequently performed jazz, swing, and pop music on the Broadway stage and in concerts. She began her career in the 1920s singing blues. Her notable recordings include "Dinah", "Stormy Weather", "Taking a Chance on Love", "Chlo-e, "Heat Wave", "Supper Time", "Am I Blue?", "Birmingham Bertha", "Cabin in the Sky", "I'm Coming Virginia", and her version of "His Eye Is on the Sparrow". Waters was the second African American to be nominated for an Academy Award, the first African American to star on her own television show, and the first African-American woman to be nominated for a Primetime Emmy Award. In 1921, Waters became the fifth black woman to make a record, for tiny Cardinal Records.

Biography source: Wikipedia. The profile adds birthday-specific historical context from the Celebs Birthday Today editorial database.

The world when Ethel Waters was born

Ethel Waters was born in 1896. The year snapshot below places that birthday in its cultural and historical setting: the music and films people were following, the headlines shaping public life, and the everyday prices families encountered.

Headlines and milestones

  • Major sports momentFirst modern Olympic Games held in Athens
  • Top headlinePlessy v. Ferguson — "separate but equal" upheld
  • Technology milestoneGuglielmo Marconi patents wireless telegraph (radio)
  • World population~1.56B

United States snapshot

  • U.S. leaderGrover Cleveland
  • U.S. population69.0M

1896 versus 2026

These figures put everyday life in Ethel Waters's birth year beside the site's latest United States snapshot.

Measure18962026
Population69.0M341 million

Sources and editorial standards

This profile combines a biographical source with structured birthday and historical context. Sources recorded for this profile: Wikipedia, IMDb, MusicBrainz, Wikidata. See our editorial policy for sourcing, corrections, and review standards.

Read the source biography on Wikipedia. Wikipedia text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.