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By the late 18th century, blackface characters began appearing on the American stage, usually as ' servant' types whose roles did little more than provide some element of comic relief. Minstrel shows were popular before slavery was abolished, sufficiently so that Frederick Douglass described blackface performers as '.the filthy scum of white society, who have stolen from us a complexion denied them by nature, in which to make money, and pander to the corrupt taste of their white fellow citizens.' Although white theatrical portrayals of black characters date back to as early as 1604, the minstrel show as such has later origins. Rice from sheet music cover of 'Sich a Getting Up Stairs', 1830s Integrationists decried them as falsely showing happy slaves while at the same time making fun of them segregationists thought such shows were 'disrespectful' of social norms as they portrayed runaway slaves with sympathy and would undermine slavery. Īlthough the minstrel shows were extremely popular, being 'consistently packed with families from all walks of life and every ethnic group', they were also controversial. On the one hand, it had strong racist aspects on the other, it afforded white Americans more awareness, albeit distorted, of some aspects of black culture in America. For several decades, it provided the means through which American whites viewed black people. During the 1830s and 1840s at the height of its popularity, it was at the epicenter of the American music industry. Spirituals (known as jubilees) entered the repertoire in the 1870s, marking the first undeniably black music to be used in minstrelsy.īlackface minstrelsy was the first theatrical form that was distinctly American. Minstrels claimed that their songs and dances were authentically black, although the extent of the black influence remains debated. These were further divided into sub-archetypes such as the mammy, her counterpart the old darky, the provocative mulatto wench, and the black soldier. Minstrel songs and sketches featured several stock characters, most popularly the slave and the dandy. The final act consisted of a slapstick musical plantation skit or a send-up of a popular play. The second part featured a variety of entertainments, including the pun-filled stump speech. The troupe first danced onto stage then exchanged wisecracks and sang songs. The typical minstrel performance followed a three-act structure. Generally, as the civil rights movement progressed and gained acceptance, minstrelsy lost popularity.

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The genre has had a lasting legacy and influence and was featured in a television series as recently as the mid-1970s.

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The form survived as professional entertainment until about 1910 amateur performances continued until the 1960s in high schools and local theaters. īy the turn of the 20th century, the minstrel show enjoyed but a shadow of its former popularity, having been replaced for the most part by vaudeville. By 1848, blackface minstrel shows were the national artform, translating formal art such as opera into popular terms for a general audience.

They were developed into full-fledged form in the next decade. Minstrel shows emerged as brief burlesques and comic entr'actes in the early 1830s in the Northeastern states. Minstrel shows lampooned black people as dim-witted, lazy, buffoonish, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. The shows were performed by mostly white people in make-up or blackface for the purpose of playing the role of black people. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent. The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of racist entertainment developed in the early 19th century. Detail from cover of The Celebrated Negro Melodies, as Sung by the Virginia Minstrels, 1843