Biographical Note

The Associated Actors and Artistes of America (AAAA, also known as the 4A's), chartered in 1919 by the American Federation of Labor, is a New York-based umbrella organization of several autonomous unions representing different types of performing artists, including the Actors Equity Association, the American Federation of Television and Radio Artists, the American Guild of Musical Artists, the American Guild of Variety Artists, and the Screen Actors Guild.

The Four A's was founded out of a conflict between the White Rats Actors Union of America, an old variety performers' union formed in 1909, and the Actors' Equity Association of America, an organization formed in 1913 to represent performers of the legitimate stage, over the acquisition of a charter from the American Federation of Labor. The gradual demise of the White Rats as an industry force led that union to merge with Equity and a number of smaller unions by July 1919, resulting in the formation of the Associated Actors and Artistes of America.

The main purpose of the Four A's since its founding has been to represent the affiliates' common interests, and to resolve jurisdictional problems between and among them, and in regard to individual actors working a range of entertainment sectors. When ethnic and foreign language theater still flourished, the Four A's affiliated included not only Actors Equity, Chorus Equity, and the Grand Opera Choral Alliance, but also the (German) White Rats, the Hebrew Actors Unions, the Hebrew Chorus Unions of New York and Philadelphia, the Hungarian Actors and Artists Association, the Italian Actors Union, the Polish Actors Union, and the Yiddish Playwrights League.

Technological changes in performance industries gave rise to new or growing affiliates including the American Federation of Radio Artists (AFRA), the Screen Actors Guild (SAG), the Screen Extras Guild (SEG), and the Television Authority (TVA), which later merged with AFRA to become the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists (AFTRA).

The demise of variety fields and the rise of television were the major issues to between the late 1930's and the early 1970's. Variety unions have been historically weak and controversial members of the Four A's, and there were repeated allegations of internal corruption and mismanagement, reflected in the 1960's and 1970's in an investigation of AGVA by the United States Senate, and in an internal 4A's investigation. The Four A's formed a Television Committee as early as 1938, and later the Television Authority, a temporary organization made up of five affiliates: Actor's Equity, Chorus Equity, the American Guild of Musical Artists, the American Guild of Variety Artists, and the American Federation of Radio Artists. The inability of these and other unions to decide upon an acceptable merger strategy led AFRA to extend a merger invitation to the TVA in 1952 and to form a new affiliate, AFTRA.

Sources:

• Thomas Colley, "A Historical Study of the White Rats of America" (Master's Thesis, Wayne State University, 1967), copy in Box 7, Folder 20.