Minstrel show

The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, is an indigenous form of American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, usually performed by white people in blackface. Although blackface dates back to at least 1769, the minstrel show as such has later origins. It began with brief burlesques and comic entr'actes in the early 1830s and emerged as a full-fledged form in the next decade. In the 1850s, minstrelsy was at least partially absorbed into the many "Tom shows", melodramas based at least loosely on Uncle Tom's Cabin. By the end of that decade, minstrel shows as such had become a "lifeless… profitable" institution{{ref|Lott-intro}}, which lingered on for several decades and largely faded out before the turn of the century. Blackface survived minstrelsy by some decades, as it had preceded it.

History

Early development

Lewis Hallam was probably the first actor to perform in blackface when he did an impression of a drunken black man in a 1769 staging of The Padlock{{ref|Scheytt-Hallam}}. His performance proved popular, and similar acts soon appeared in other plays and in circuses. Meanwhile in the streets of major cities, musicians played what they claimed to be "Negro music" on so-called black instruments such as the banjo. Performers adopted this music and dance as a central part of their blackface acts, and the public and press dubbed them "minstrels". Many popular entertainers got into the act, including George Washington Dixon and Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice. Rice's celebrated song and dance "Jump Jim Crow" brought blackface performance to a new level of prominence in the 1830s. The river cities of the Appalachians and West figured significantly in early blackface minstrelsy; T.D. Rice first performed in the West, and Dan Emmett got his musical education there. Pittsburgh songwriter Stephen Foster got his first exposure to African-American music from a house servant who sang religious songs{{ref|Lott-Appalachians}}.

Related Topics:
Lewis Hallam - Blackface - The Padlock - Negro - Banjo - George Washington Dixon - Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice - Jump Jim Crow - Dan Emmett - Stephen Foster

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At the height of Rice's success in the early 1830s, blackface performance was often seen as an entr'acte in respectable New York theaters, but it soon found a home in the less respectable precincts of Lower Broadway, the Bowery, and Chatham Street, as part of the era's general stratification of theaters. Performances in taverns came to outnumber those in theaters by a factor of ten. Typical of the period were short burlesques, often with mock Shakespearean titles like "Hamlet the Dainty", "Bad Breath, the Crane of Chowder", "Julius Sneezer", or "Dars-de-Money"{{ref|Lott-Shakespeare}}.

Related Topics:
Entr'acte - New York - Broadway - Bowery - Chatham Street - Burlesque

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Meanwhile, at least some whites were interested in black song and dance performed by black performers. In New York City in the early 19th century, black slaves on their days off shingle danced for spare change. The New Orleans Picayune wrote that a singing street vendor called Old Corn Meal would bring "a fortune to any man who would start on a professional tour with him."{{ref|Lott-Picayune}} There had been several attempts at legitimate black stage performance, the most ambitious probably being New York's African Grove theater. The playhouse was founded and operated by free blacks in 1821, with a repertoire drawing heavily on Shakespeare, but it was harrassed out of existence by authorities unwilling to tolerate its mostly black audiences behaving in the same boisterous manner typical of all New York audiences of the time{{ref|Lott-Grove}}.

Related Topics:
New York City - 19th century - Shingle danced - African Grove - 1821

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Height and decline

The minstrel show as a complete evening's entertainment was invented when Dan Emmett and the Virginia Minstrels gave their first performance at the New York Bowery Amphitheatre in 1843{{ref|Scheytt-Emmett}}. Unlike most earlier blackface performances, where only a dancer and perhaps another singer would "black up", the Virginia Minstrels all wore blackface. Shortly thereafter, E.P. Christy founded the Christy Minstrels, who would establish the template into which minstrel shows would fall for the next few decades. These two groups dominated the scene until the Civil War, touring the same circuits as opera companies, circuses, and European itinerant entertainers.

Related Topics:
Virginia Minstrels - New York Bowery Amphitheatre - 1843 - E.P. Christy - Christy Minstrels - Civil War

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The rise of the minstrel show coincided with the growing abolitionist movement in the North. In fact, in the antebellum period, blackface minstrelsy was mainly a northern phenomenon, banned in several southern cities{{ref|Lott-banned}}. Northerners were concerned for the oppressed blacks of the South, but most of them had no idea how these slaves lived day-to-day. The minstrels provided these theatregoers with some image of black life, albeit a greatly romanticized and exaggerated one. Slaves were shown as happy, cheerful simpletons, always ready to sing and dance and to please their masters. Despite Northern moves toward abolitionism, the message was clear: don't worry about the slaves; they are happy with their lot in life{{ref|Scheytt-happy}}.

Related Topics:
Abolitionist - Slaves

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However, blackface minstrelsy served as a sort of fool's mask, allowing the performers to lampoon virtually anything without offending the audience{{ref|Scheytt-fool}}. This social criticism became more and more prevalent in the minstrel shows during the Civil War in the 1860s. Gradually, social commentary began to replace traditional elements of the minstrel show. Minstrels took on a much more decidedly abolitionist stance, and performers such as The Fighting Hutchinson Family became popular advocates of abolition, women's rights, and the temperance movement.

Related Topics:
The Fighting Hutchinson Family - Women's rights - Temperance movement

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This politicization of the minstrel show also played a major role in shaping new racist ideas. White, working-class Northerners often identified with the characters portrayed in early blackface performances. The minstrel show, however, arose at the same time as groups struggling for workingman's nativism and pro-Southern causes. The minstrel show began to confirm pre-existing forms of racism and to establish new ones. Following a pattern that had been pioneered by Rice, minstrelsy united workers and "class superiors" against a common black enemy, symbolized especially by the character of the black dandy{{ref|Lott-racism}}. In this same period, the class-conscious but racially inclusive rhetoric of "wage slavery" was largely supplanted by a racist one of "white slavery"—which suggested that the abuses against northern factory workers were a graver ill than the treatment of black slaves—or by a less class-conscious rhetoric of "productive" vs. "unproductive" elements of society{{ref|Lott-wages}}. Among the appeals and racial stereotypes of the minstrel show were the pleasure of the grotesque and its infantilization of blacks. These allowed (by proxy, and without full identification) childish fun and other "low" pleasures in an industrializing world where workers were increasingly expected to abandon such things{{ref|Lott-grotesque}}. Meanwhile, the more respectable could view the vulgar audience itself as a spectacle{{ref|Lott-spectacle}}.

Related Topics:
Nativism - Grotesque

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Minstrels in London, circa 1880

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During the Civil War, black players began to perform in minstrel shows, although in keeping with convention, they still corked their faces. All-black troupes such as Callender's Georgia Minstrels toured the North throughout the war, and white managers at war's end signed contracts with many of these troupes. The black groups often featured women performers, as well. Despite the overt racist nature of the minstrel show, for many blacks it was their first legitimate opportunity to enter show business.

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After the Civil War, minstrel troupes ballooned as each troupe tried to outdo the others (J.H. Haverly's United Mastodon Minstrels had over 100 cast members, for example). Many troupes began touring Europe, and scenery often grew lavish and expensive. These changes made many minstrel shows unprofitable, and traditional troupes complained loudly about them. Many original themes of the show had been lost in the Civil War social commentary, and audiences began to dwindle. Finally, new entertainments such as vaudeville appeared in the 1890s. The minstrel show had mostly disappeared by 1900.

Related Topics:
J.H. Haverly's - United Mastodon Minstrels - Vaudeville - 1890s - 1900

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