Blackface Minstrelsy

Sounds of History: U.S. History In and Through Music

A Presentation for

Conflict and Consensus: Key Moments in U.S. History

A Teaching American History Project

Professor Adam RothmanGeorgetown University

November 4, 2009

“Negro melodies are the very democracy of music.”

-- New York Daily Tribune, March 12, 1847.

Source: Uncle Tom’s Cabin in American Culture, online at http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/minstrel/miar04at.html

Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs, online at: http://hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b14246

“Negroes are very fond of the discordant notes of the banjar, and the hollow sound of the toombah. The banjar is somewhat similar to the guittar, the bottom, or under part, is formed of one half of a large calabash, to which is prefixed a wooden neck, and it is strung with cat-gut and wire. This instrument is the invention of, and was brought here by the African negroes, who are most expert in the performances thereon…”

-- John Luffman, A Brief account of the island of Antigua… (1789)

From John Stedman, Narrative of a Five Year’s Expedition against the revolted Negroes of Surinam (1796).

Source: The Atlantic Slave Trade and Slave Life in the Americasonline at http://hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/SlaveTrade/collection/large/mariners04.JPG

“Jenny Get Your Hoe Cake Done”, 1840. Source: Music for the nation, American Memory, Library of Congress, online at http://memory.loc.gov/music/sm2/sm1840/371000/371080/001.jpg

Joel Sweeney (1810-1860)

Source: National Park Service, Appomattox Court House, online at http://www.nps.gov/apco/images/joelsweeney285.jpg

Mary Cassatt, The Banjo Lesson (1894). Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs, online at http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3g00000/3g04000/3g04600/3g04634v.jpg

Victor Schreck, “Retrospection,” Savannah , Ga. (1902). Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs, online at http://memory.loc.gov/master/pnp/cph/3a40000/3a46000/3a46900/3a46916u.tif

Source: Uncle Tom’s Cabin in American Culture, online at http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/minstrel/migallsof.html

Jump Jim Crow

My name is Daddy Rice, as you berry well do know.And none in de Nited States like me, can jump Jim Crow.

Chorus: Weel about and turn about, and do jis so,Ebery time I weel about, I jump Jim Crow.

Zip Coon, 1834. Source: Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division, online at http://memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3c20000/3c26000/3c26100/3c26131v.jpg

I tell you what will happin den, now bery soon,De Nited States Bank will be blone to de moon;Dare General Jackson, will him lampoon,An de bery nex President, will be Zip Coon.

From Zip Coon (1834)Source: Uncle Tom’s Cabin in American Culture, online at:http://utc.iath.virginia.edu/minstrel/zipcoonfr.html

Lucy Neal, ca. 1850Source: Spellman Collection of Victorian Music Covers, University of Reading, online at http://vads.ahds.ac.uk/images/SCVMC/medium/5060.jpg

“My massa he did sell me,Because he thought I'd steal,Which caused a separation,Of myself and Lucy Neale.”

Library of Congress, American Memory, online at http://memory.loc.gov/rbc/amss/as1/as109570/001a.tif

They say that any nation white that has some knowledge got, Should enslave an ignorant dark one, but that I reckon not. So I wheel about, &c.

If that creed's true, one white man that's whiter than another, And learned a little more, should enslave his darker brother. So I wheel about, &c.

(The New Jim Crow Song, 1862)

Old Folks At Home (1851)Source: Historic American Sheet Music, Duke University, online at http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/n/n02/n0234/

Stephen Foster, attributed to Thomas Hicks, ca. 1850. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian, online at http://www.npg.si.edu/img2/1846/6500094a.jpg

“It’s Nobodys Business But My Own,” 1919. Source: Historic American Sheet Music, Duke University, online at http://scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/b/b07/b0755/

“The funniest man I ever saw, and the saddest men I ever knew.”

-- W. C. Fields on Bert Williams