{{short description|African American newspaper columnist and magician}}{{Infobox person | name = Princess Mysteria | image = PrincessMysteria1930.png | other_names = Vauleda Hill Strodder | birth_name = Vauleda Hill | death_date = March 14, 1930 | death_place = Chicago, Illinois, U.S. | occupation = Vaudeville performer, mentalist, radio entertainer, newspaper advice columnist }} '''Princess Mysteria''' (stage name of '''Vauleda Hill Strodder''', 1888 – March 14, 1930) was an American mentalist and vaudeville performer, who made radio broadcasts and wrote an advice column for ''The Chicago Defender''.
==Biography== Vauleda Hill was born in an American family in 1888 and grew up in Kansas City, Missouri, but identifying her exact birthplace is made difficult by her insistence that she was born "at the foot of the Mahali Mountains in India, near Bombay."<ref name="Defender">{{cite news |author=<!--Staff writer(s); no by-line.--> |title=Princess Mysteria Pens Last 'Advice to The Wise'|work=The Chicago Defender |location=Chicago|date=March 22, 1930|url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-chicago-defender-princess-mysteria-p/191812579/|via=Newspapers.com}}</ref>
The story as she told it is that she developed skills as a mentalist as a child and, by the age of six, was able to answer questions before they were asked. Impressed by her performance, the Rajah of Bengal made her a princess.<ref name=Defender/> Historians agree that this was just a legend created to promote her performances, and note that it was not uncommon for African American women claiming "occult" powers to advertise themselves as Indian.<ref name=Curtis>{{cite book |last=Curtis, IV|first=Edward E.|date=2002|title=Islam in Black America: Identity, Liberation, and Difference in African-American Islamic Thought |location=Albany, New York |publisher=State University of New York Press|page=57|isbn=0-7914-5369-3}}</ref>
With her parents, Vauleda moved from Kansas City to Chicago, where she married Al C. Strodder. In the 1910s, she started performing as "Princess Mysteria," assisted by her husband, who went under the name "Prince Mysteria."<ref name=Defender/> She dressed in exotic costumes, with beads, jewels and a headband. She also performed as a mentalist, calling herself a "human radio," on the waves of WJKS, a radio station in Gary, Indiana.<ref name=Curtis/> She was one of the most applauded mentalists in the United States.<ref name=Defender/>
Mysteria also became famous for dispensing her wisdom weekly on her own column, called "Advice to the Wise and Otherwise," in the African American newspaper ''The Chicago Defender'' from 1920 to 1930.<ref>{{Cite news |last=Onion |first=Rebecca |date=2021-05-16 |title=The Most Radical Advice Columnist of the 1920s |url=https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/05/princess-mysteria-radical-advice-1920s.html |access-date=2026-02-21 |work=Slate |language=en-US |issn=1091-2339 |archive-date=2025-10-04 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20251004205253/https://slate.com/human-interest/2021/05/princess-mysteria-radical-advice-1920s.html |url-status=live }}</ref> She died unexpectedly, after a short illness, on March 14, 1930, in Chicago.<ref>{{Cite news |date=1930-03-22 |title=Death Ends Stage Career |url=https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-chicago-defender-death-ends-stage-ca/191813132/ |access-date=2026-02-21 |work=The Chicago Defender |pages=13 |via=Newspapers.com}}</ref> ''The Chicago Defender'' commented that, "from roughly 1917 until her death in 1930, no other female magician and few male magicians received as much coverage in the black press as she did."<ref name=Defender/>
==References== {{Reflist}}
==Further reading== * Golia, Julie (2021). ''[https://www.google.com/books/edition/Newspaper_Confessions/0UsnEAAAQBAJ Newspaper Confessions: A History of Advice Columns in a Pre-Internet Age]'', Chapter 4: Advising the Race: Princess Mysteria and the Black Feminist Advice Tradition. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0197527809.
{{Authority control}} {{DEFAULTSORT:Princess Mysteria}} Category:1888 births Category:1930 deaths Category:American magicians Category:Mentalists Category:American women columnists