Harry Kraton

Harry Kraton, sometimes given as Harry Craton and Fields and Hanson Minstrels (John F. Fields and Frank Hanson). He then worked with Sissieretta Jones and the Black Patti's Troubadours; performing with them on their annual tours from 1904-1908. The 1905-1906 touring show was entitled The Virginia Mammy.

While Kraton's early career was predominantly in minstrel shows, he also performed in vaudeville as early as 1900 with the Big Black Vaudeville Company. With his wife Ethelyn Kraton he formed a hoop rolling vaudeville act known as The Kratons in 1906. This group also occasionally included his brothers, John and Delma, and also utilized performers outside the Kraton family, including Fred Diegman, Tom Johnson, Tom Hart and married couple Clarence and Leonora Johnson. The Kraton's biggest success was a show called "Hoopville" in which multiple hoops were manipulated across a stage set simultaneously with all of the hoop manipulators off stage and remaining unseen.

Kraton died at the age of 29 in a sanatorium in Bournemouth, England on 10 October 1912.