New York City, New York. Circa 1890-1910.Wikimedia Commons
New York City, New York. 1898.New York Public Library
New York City, New York. 1895.Wikimedia Commons
Location unspecified. August 1922.Wikimedia Commons
Though Miller and Lyles were African-Americans, they painted their faces darker and played in minstrel roles to appease the crowd's expectations.
New York City, New York. Circa 1909-1928.New York Public Library
New York. Circa 1880-1900.New York Public Library
The song's writer, Ernest Hogan, was black. "That song cause a lot of trouble," Hogan admitted. He'd written it, though, to give the people wanted they wanted, explaining, "Money was short."
New York City, New York. 1896.New York Public Library
New York City, New York. Circa 1917-1920.Wikimedia Commons
Location unspecified. Circa 1915-1920.Wikimedia Commons
Location unspecified. 1909.Wikimedia Commons
Cambridge, Massachusetts. Circa 1890-1905.TCS 1.935, Harvard Theatre Collection/Harvard University
Dilward wasn't Japanese, but his managers were worried that the crowd wouldn't take to a black performer. He was given his name to hide that, under the black makeup, he really had black skin.
Location unspecified. Circa 1855-1865Library of Congress
New York City, New York. 1910.New York Public Library
Date and location unspecified.New York Public Library
New York City, New York. 1899.Wikimedia Commons
Location unspecified. Circa 1880-1902.Wikimedia Commons
Chicago, Illinois. Date unspecified.TCS 1.935, Harvard Theatre Collection/Harvard University
Fall River, Massachusetts. June 20, 1916.Wikimedia Commons
New Orleans, Louisiana. 1934. Wikimedia Commons
New York City, New York. 1899.New York Public Library
New York. 1912.New York Public Library
Location unspecified. November 1, 1929.Wikimedia Commons
Date and location unspecified.New York Public Library
Date and location unspecified.New York Public Library
Columbus, Ohio. Circa 1900-1919.TCS 1.935, Harvard Theatre Collection/Harvard University
North Hampton, New Hampshire. Circa 1930-1950.Wikimedia Commons
Chicago, Illinois. Circa 1920-1935.New York Public Library
New York City, New York. 1895.New York Public Library
Chicago, Illinois. Circa 1900-1919.TCS 1.935, Harvard Theatre Collection/Harvard University
Germany. 1912.Wikimedia Commons
New York City, New York. 1903.Wikimedia Commons
Location unspecified. 1921Wikimedia Commons
New York City, New York. 1897.New York Public Library
Location unspecified. 1889New York Public Library
Louisville, Kentucky. August 1918.Wikimedia Commons
Chicago, Illinois. 1919.TCS 1.551, Harvard Theatre Collection/Harvard University
Location unspecified. 1855. Wikimedia Commons
Omaha, Nebrasaka. 1921.Wikimedia Commons
Kent, England. 1908.Wikimedia Commons
Throughout the 19th century, minstrel shows were one of America’s favorite ways to kick back and have fun. People around the country would flock out to theaters in droves, ready to laugh at white men in blackface plucking at banjos, banging on tambourines, and pretending to be as dumb as bricks.
It was entertainment. It was, the people thought, simple fun. They just turned off their minds and laughed — either unaware of or unconcerned about the blackface's insidious implications.
Minstrel shows affected the way in which the nation saw an entire race of people. These minstrel shows did more than entertain – they changed the way people thought. For many white people, the only exposure they had at all to black Americans came through the blackface caricatures that they saw on stage.
They would watch stock characters in tattered clothes struggling through a broken, Pidgin English. They’d laugh at the simplicity of these character’s minds — and, often, they’d accept these characterizations as a mirror of reality.
Finally, as public opinion started to turn against slavery, southern whites started playing up the stupidity of minstrelsy's black characters. Whites used the minstrel shows to show black people as dumb and savage, as people in need of the whips and chains of white civilization to keep them from going wild.
Following the Civil War, minstrel shows helped give birth to the Jim Crow Laws. These laws were named after a recurring character played by a white man in blackface who acted the fool – and who, in the minds of white America, epitomized the nature of black people.
Even as black people started earning their freedom, minstrel shows still ruled their lives. The first black entertainers could only get work by playing minstrel roles in vaudeville shows and circuses. They dressed up like caricatures of their own race and pretended to be idiots, the men often wearing dresses and padding their behinds. The only way they could get work was to – in the words of Frederick Douglass, "pander to the corrupt tastes" of the "filthy scum of white society."
But blackface and minstrel shows aren’t just a thing of the past. They’ve lived on for far longer than most people realize. The BBC kept The Black and White Minstrel Show on the air until 1978. Old minstrel songs like "Camptown Races" are still songs we sing to our children. And even Raggedy Ann’s iconic design were both modelled after blackface performers.
Blackface represents a dark period in American history – but one that isn’t a forgotten part of our distant past. The effects of blackface still linger on today, lurking under the surface of modern life.
Next, find out about the disturbing history of Jim Crow and segregation in America.
