To complete the picture, Lair coached her to be cheerful, optimistic, and perky, a coy hillbilly ingénue. He changed her name to Linda Parker, "The Little Sunbonnet Girl," and her hometown from industrial Hammond, Indiana to rural Kentucky. She was invited by John Lair to join Chicago's National Barn Dance in 1932. McCusker makes her case by following the careers of seven barn-dance radio women as revealed by their biographical material, the correspondence of the managers who shaped the women's image and career back-story, transcriptions of the broadcasts, radio station fan-oriented publicity, and published fan comments.Ī juvenile delinquent and bar singer, twenty-year-old Jeanne Munch was the prototypical female barn-dance performer. Confronting this view, McCusker convincingly shows that women not only appeared on barn-dance radio, but they played a significant role in shaping the country music Zeitgeist. Scholars have generally seen these women as 'window dressing,' unimportant to the development of country music. The prejudices were all too real, but many women had opportunities to perform as part of a barn dance show's 'family' cast. They say that for women to have a chance, they performed as part of family aggregations or with their husband and his band. They cite the prejudices against women performing on stage and traveling unaccompanied with men. According to standard accounts of country music's development, women played a minor part in the 1930-40s.