An entertainment form in which White male performers blackened their faces in imitation
of Negroes to perform what were presented as Black dialect, songs, dances, and jokes.
Minstrel shows were popular in America throughout the 19th century and into the early
20th century. While rooted in European music and theater, minstrelsy represented a
conscious move in America toward an indigenous entertainment form.
Although minstrelsy enjoyed its greatest popularity during the 19th century, blackface
entertainment, which originated in Europe, was performed in America during the early
republic period, although American Black life and culture were not used as stage material
until the early 1820s. Increasing numbers of performers with cork-blackened faces soon
followed, traveling and, initially, performing “Negro” songs and dances during theater
interludes or in circuses. One of the most famous, and earliest, of these performers was
Thomas D.Rice, who, after observing an elderly Black man dance and sing, adopted the
moves and the song, modified both, and created a new act, which premiered in 1828, that
featured the song and dance “Jim Crow.” By the early 1940s, individual blackface
performers began to band together to form minstrel shows.
Opinions differ as to which troupe performed the first minstrel show, although much
evidence points toward the February 1843 performance of four blackface performers,
Billy Whitlock, Frank Pelham, Dan Emmett, and Frank Brower, who appeared as the
Virginia Minstrels. Christy’s Minstrels, though, is credited with finding the “ideal
minstrel blend” when it combined the rowdiness of the Virginia Minstrels with the
sentimentality of Stephen Foster’s songs (Toll 1974:38). By the mid-1850s, the three-part
minstrel show had evolved and continued to be predominant thereafter. The first part
featured the entire minstrel company placed in a semicircle, with the interlocutor, or the
straight man, in the center, and flanked by the comic end men, Tambo and Bones. The
first part included serious and comic songs, dance, and humor and usually ended with a
stump speech, an oration delivered to the audience in Black dialect and filled with
malapropisms. The second part, the olio, resembled a variety show and also included a
stump speech. The final act was a one-act skit, usually farce and parody
Minstrelsy had a great and lasting effect on White America’s perception of Blacks.
One of its earliest appeals was that it offered Whites what they believed were accurate
portrayals of Southern Black slaves, with images such as “huge eyes and gaping mouths,”
shabby and ill-fitting clothes, unique dialect, constant fidgeting, frenzied and eccentric
movements in response to music, and an inability to control themselves (Toll 1974:34–
36). In contrast to this “foolish” image, the sentimental songs written by Stephen Foster,
many of which were performed by minstrel troupes, provided another stereotype of the
happy, loyal plantation “darky,” such as Old Darky or Old Auntie. Additionally, while
earlier portrayals of Blacks demonstrated some variety, later and more successful
minstrelsy presented specific stereotypes of Blacks that became firmly entrenched as fact
in White consciousness. Blacks were portrayed as intellectually and physically inferior
through derogatory characterizations, represented by the happy, carefree, ignorant Southern Black, such as Jim Crow, or the falsely egocentric dandy, such as Zip Coon or
Dandy Jim.
Black minstrel troupes appeared occasionally before the Civil War and continued to
grow in number and popularity after the end of the war. While Black performers
introduced new material to minstrelsy, they generally retained the traditional standards,
which often included “blacking up,” because they relied on the acceptance of White
audiences. One of the earliest and best-known Black minstrels was Master Juba, a dancer
who was famous for his rendition of an Irish jig.
The rising popularity of these authentic Black performers as well as the increasing
success of other entertainment forms after the Civil War threatened the hold minstrelsy
had on the stage. Minstrel troupes responded by expanding in size, traveling extensively,
expanding the parts of the show, getting rid of the vulgarity, and even moving away from
concentration on Black imitation. Minstrelsy, thus, remained popular through the turn of
the century, as is evidenced by the success of Al Jolson, an American blackface
entertainer who starred in The jazz Singer, the first full-length film with synchronized
sound. Even after its general popularity began to wane, Minstrelsy still drew audiences in
rural areas and small towns. It was also used by the WPA (Works Progress
Administration), in the 1930s to uplift spirits by providing comedy and laughter to
Depression-era Americans, and it was utilized for the same reasons by the USO through
World War II. Increasing racial consciousness and the civil rights movement were largely
responsible for the virtual demise of minstrelsy by mid-century, although instances of it
still appeared as late as the 1970s.
Sandra G.Hancock
References
Boskin, Joseph. 1986. Sambo: The Rise and Demise of an American Jester. New York: Oxford
University Press.
Nathan, Hans. 1962. Dan Emmett and the Rise of Early Negro Minstrelsy. Norman: University of
Oklahoma Press.
Toll, Robert C. 1974. Blacking up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-Century America. New York:
Oxford University Press.