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Minstrel show
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minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, an indigenous
American theatrical form, popular from the early 19th to
the early 20th century, that was founded on the comic
enactment of racial stereotypes. The tradition reached its
zenith between 1850 and 1870. Although the form
gradually disappeared from the professional theatres and
became purely a vehicle for amateurs, its inuence
enduredin vaudeville, radio, and television as well as in
the motion-picture and world-music industries of the
20th and 21st centuries.
The earliest minstrel shows were staged by white male
minstrels (traveling musicians) who, with their faces
painted black, caricatured the singing and dancing of
slaves. Scholars usually distinguish this form of the
tradition as blackface minstrelsy. The father of the
blackface show was Thomas Dartmouth Rice, popularly
known as Jim Crow, an early African American
impersonator whose performances created a vogue for
the genre. The pioneer company, the Virginia Minstrels, a
quartet headed by Daniel Decatur Emmett, rst
performed in 1843. Other noteworthy companies were
Bryants, Campbells, and Haverlys, but the most

LibraryofCongress,Washington,D.C.(file important of the early companies was the Christy

no.LCUSZC411109) Minstrels, who played on Broadway for nearly 10 years;
Stephen Foster wrote songs for this company.

The format of the minstrel show, usually in two parts, was established by the Christy company
and changed little thereafter. In part one the performers were arranged in a semicircle, with
the interlocutor in the centre and the end menMr. Tambo, who played the tambourine, and
Mr. Bones, who rattled the bones (a pair of clappers, named after the original material from
which they were made)at the ends. The interlocutor, in whiteface, usually wore formal attire;
the others, in blackface, wore gaudy swallow-tailed coats and striped trousers. The program
opened with a chorus, often as a grand entrance, and at the conclusion of the song the
interlocutor gave the command, Gentlemen, be seated. Then followed a series of jokes
between the interlocutor and end men, interspersed with ballads, comic songs, and
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instrumental numbers, chiey on the banjo and violin. The second part, or olio (mixture or
medley), consisted of a series of individual acts that concluded with a hoedown or walk-
around in which every member did a specialty number while the others sang and clapped.
Occasionally there was a third part consisting of a farce, burlesque, or comic opera.

Minstrel troupes composed of black performers were formed after the American Civil War, and
a number of these, including the Hicks and Sawyer Minstrels, had black owners and managers.
Some, such as Callendars Consolidated Spectacular Colored Minstrels, were popular in both
the United States and Britain in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Initially these shows
were staged by all-male companies that included male alto and male soprano singers. The
larger black minstrel shows included bands of multitalented instrumentalists to play marches
for the troupes parades in the daytime and perform string accompaniments for the evening
shows. In addition to some music by Stephen Foster, their repertoire featured music by black
composers such as James Bland, a popular singer-banjoist who wrote some 700 songs,
including Carry Me Back to Old Virginny. In general, these minstrel shows were the only
theatrical medium in which gifted black performers of the period could support themselves.

A few of the larger companies employed both black and white performers. By the 20th
century, women were also appearing in minstrel shows; the great blues singers Ma Rainey and
Bessie Smith were both minstrel performers early in their careers. Minstrel shows had
effectively disappeared by the mid-20th century. However, vestiges of their racial stereotyping
and performance aesthetics persisted for decades in various performance mediums, including
television situation comedies such as Sanford and Son and The Jeffersons, which aired in the
United States in the 1970s and 80s, as well as the South African world-music genre known as
isicathamiya, championed in the late 20th and early 21st century by the group Ladysmith
Black Mambazo.

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