WARNING: This exhibit contains images and text from blackface minstrelsy, a theatrical genre that involved demeaning caricatures rooted in racism and white supremacy.
Blackface minstrelsy, also called blackface, is an indigenous American theatrical form that constituted a subgenre of the minstrel show. Intended as comic entertainment. Blackface minstrelsy was performed by a group of white minstrels (traveling musicians) with black-painted faces, whose material caricatured the singing and dancing of slaves. The form reached the pinnacle of its popularity between 1850 and 1870, when it enjoyed sizeable audiences in both the United States and Britain. Although blackface minstrelsy gradually disappeared from the professional theatres and became purely a vehicle for amateurs, its influence endured in later entertainment genres and media, including vaudeville theatre, radio and television programs, and the world-music and motion-picture industries of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The “father of American minstrelsy” was Thomas Dartmouth “Daddy” Rice, a white performer who by 1831 developed a song-and-dance routine in which he darkened his face and caricatured an old, physically disabled enslaved African American. Throughout the 1830s this character, named Jim Crow, achieved great popularity and inspired many imitators. The name of the character would eventually become synonymous with the laws, customs and etiquette that segregated and demeaned African Americans primarily from the 1870s to the 1960s.
By 1834 George Washington Dixon had introduced a song called "Zip Coon," about a free, urban African American. Dixon portrayed him as a well-dressed dandy who "put on airs" and acted above his station. The tune associated with the titular song eventually became known as "Turkey in the Straw." This song, with new lyrics, became closely associated with American childhood, appearing school songbooks, cartoons like Steam Boat Willie and Bugs Bunny, and even becoming one of the standard tunes played by the ice cream man each summer.
By 1848 T.D. Rice had introduced the character of Dinah Crow, Jim Crow's sister, a light-skinned black woman who acted above her station. At the time the character was introduced Dinah would've been performed by a white man in black face and female drag.
In 1842 the New York–based songwriter Daniel Decatur Emmett (who would eventually author the song "Dixie") and three companions devised a program of singing and dancing in blackface to the accompaniment of bone castanets, violin, banjo, and tambourine. Calling themselves the Virginia Minstrels, they made their first public appearance in February of 1843. The all-male troupe positioned themselves on stage in a semicircle, with an interlocutor at the center and two “endmen”—a tambourine player (Mr. Tambo) and a bones player (Mr. Bones)—at each end (the Virginia Minstrels cover above depicts this formation). Their performances were essentially forerunners of the modern variety show, consisting of jokes (especially between the endmen and the interlocutor), and music mixed with comedic skits, humorous speeches, and brief plays that parodied life on the plantation and other popular theatrical works Shakespeare's Hamlet. Emmett and the Virginia Minstrels had enjoyed unparalleled success, even making a hit on Broadway.
When the Virginia Minstrels broke up later that same year, E. P. Christy moved swiftly to fill the gap. By 1846 Christy's Minstrels had moved into Mechanic's Hall in New York, a venue they would not abandon for ten year. Christy adopted Emmett's format, and even went so far as to name his troupe "Christy's Original Band of Virginia Minstrels." Yet Christy also added innovations — and a level of polish — that broadened the audience for the minstrel show. In the realm of musicality, Christy's band clearly outclassed the competition. Christy attempted to tone down the racier aspects of the traditional minstrel show, eliminating songs with references to sex and violence in favor of sentimental plantation ballads and sweet vocal harmonies. The Christy Minstrels' ten-year stint on Broadway and their successful tour of England helped establish them as the world's preeminent minstrel troupe.
George Christy, a member of Christy's Minstrels, was most likely the first person to crossdress while portraying a female character on the minstrel stage. He was popularized the character "Miss Lucy Long," the first "wench" character to appear on the minstrel stage.
During the 1840s the shows were divided into two parts. The first concentrated on stereotypes of the urban black dandy (Zip Coon), the second on stereotypes of the southern plantation slave (Jim Crow). The caricatures in both sections were demeaning. By the 1850s, however, these elements had been reduced and condensed into the concluding section of a three-part show. Music of the “genteel” tradition now prevailed in the first section, in which popular and sentimental ballads were performed. The middle part consisted of the “olio,” a potpourri of dancing and musical virtuosity, with parodies of Italian operas, stage plays, and visiting European musicians. Shows usually concluded with a “walk-around.” This was an ensemble finale in which members of the troupe in various combinations participated in song, instrumental and choral music, and dance.
The "Blackface" in Blackface minstrel comes from the practice of performers putting on blackface makeup.
Blackface minstrel makeup was made out of a cork burned in oil, also known as burnt cork
Fictitiously exaggerated lips were typically outlined in white or pink makeup, while eyes were outlined in white.
Once the blackface makeup was applied, actors would put on costumes to create caricatures. To the present day these caricatures have pervaded American culture as African American stereotypes. Some of the most widely recognized blackface characters include Mammy, Uncle Tom, Jim Crow, Jezebel and the picaninny.
Although numerous blackface caricatures were created for the minstrel stage, the most widely recognized blackface costume utilized an ill-fitted tuxedo with pinstriped pants, an oversized bow-tie, and a wooly wig.
Faces weren't the only body parts covered in burnt cork. Oftentimes hands were also painted. Equally important to costuming and makeup were the actor's physical emodiment of their characters. The actors slumped, smiled broadly, limped and embodied other signs of physical disabilitiy. Depictions of blackface minstrel performers on sheet music covers and handbills frequently depicted performers both in and out of costume to emphasize how thoroughly they disappeared into their characters and how their performances were diametrically opposed to how the actor appeared in real life.
Much of the music deployed during minstrel performances depicted black characters either comedically, or pathetically, as did the skits used between the musical acts. Most of the songs originally written for the minstrel shows utilized blackface "dialect," an attempt by white people to mimic black speech. One of the most popular composers for the blackface stage was Stephen Foster who specialized in both comedic ("Camptown Races" and "Oh Susanna") and pathetic songs (like "Nelly was a Lady" and "My Old Kentucky Home"). Like with "Zip Coon" many of Foster's most problematic songs entered United States popular culture and became heavily used in first silent film, by accompanists, then in films in sound, and finally in television, being heavily used on shows targetted at children. The songs were also stalwart entries in school songbooks and mainstays of children's musical toys.
This is a collaboration between the Center for American Music, Theodore M. Finney Music Library, and Archives & Special Collections.