Blackface Minstrelsy

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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
Blackface Minstrelsy
Professor Adam Rothman Georgetown
University November 4, 2009
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Negro melodies are the very democracy of music.
-- New York Daily Tribune, March 12, 1847.
Source Uncle Toms Cabin in American Culture,
online at http//utc.iath.virginia.edu/minstrel/mi
ar04at.html
Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs,
online at http//hdl.loc.gov/loc.pnp/cph.3b14246
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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 Years
Expedition against the revolted Negroes of
Surinam (1796). Source The Atlantic Slave
Trade and Slave Life in the Americas online at
http//hitchcock.itc.virginia.edu/SlaveTrade/colle
ction/large/mariners04.JPG
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Joel Sweeney (1810-1860) Source National Park
Service, Appomattox Court House, online at
http//www.nps.gov/apco/images/joelsweeney285.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/sm
2/sm1840/371000/371080/001.jpg
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Mary Cassatt, The Banjo Lesson (1894). Library
of Congress, Prints and Photographs, online at
http//memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3g00000/3g04
000/3g04600/3g04634v.jpg
Victor Schreck, Retrospection, Savannah , Ga.
(1902). Library of Congress, Prints and
Photographs, online at http//memory.loc.gov/maste
r/pnp/cph/3a40000/3a46000/3a46900/3a46916u.tif
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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.
Source Uncle Toms Cabin in American Culture,
online at http//utc.iath.virginia.edu/minstrel/mi
gallsof.html
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I tell you what will happin den, now bery
soon,De Nited States Bank will be blone to de
moonDare General Jackson, will him lampoon,An
de bery nex President, will be Zip Coon. From
Zip Coon (1834) Source Uncle Toms Cabin in
American Culture, online at http//utc.iath.virgi
nia.edu/minstrel/zipcoonfr.html
Zip Coon, 1834. Source Library of Congress,
Prints and Photographs Division, online at
http//memory.loc.gov/service/pnp/cph/3c20000/3c26
000/3c26100/3c26131v.jpg
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My massa he did sell me,Because he thought I'd
steal,Which caused a separation,Of myself and
Lucy Neale.
Lucy Neal, ca. 1850 Source Spellman Collection
of Victorian Music Covers, University of Reading,
online at http//vads.ahds.ac.uk/images/SCVMC/medi
um/5060.jpg
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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)
Library of Congress, American Memory, online at
http//memory.loc.gov/rbc/amss/as1/as109570/001a.t
if
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Old Folks At Home (1851) Source Historic
American Sheet Music, Duke University, online at
http//scriptorium.lib.duke.edu/sheetmusic/n/n02/n
0234/
Stephen Foster, attributed to Thomas Hicks, ca.
1850. National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian,
online at http//www.npg.si.edu/img2/1846/6500094a
.jpg
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The funniest man I ever saw, and the saddest men
I ever knew. -- W. C. Fields on Bert Williams
Its Nobodys Business But My Own, 1919.
Source Historic American Sheet Music, Duke
University, online at http//scriptorium.lib.duke.
edu/sheetmusic/b/b07/b0755/