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.

References

• Lott, Eric (1993). Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. Oxford University Press. ISBN 019509641X.
• Paskman, Dailey, and Spaeth, Sigmund (1928). "A Working Model", Gentlemen, Be Seated!. Garden City: Doubleday, Doran & Company. Accessed 8 September 2005.
• Scheytt, Jochen. "The Minstrel Show". Accessed 8 September 2005.