New York City, New York. Circa 1890-1910.
Wikimedia Commons The sheet music for a song called "Whar de Watermelon Grow."New York City, New York. 1898.
New York Public Library An actor named Mills Thompson dresses up as a stereotypical "savage," complete with a club and a bone through his nose.New York City, New York. 1895.
Wikimedia Commons A group called the Radio 4 sing, "Sweet 'taters and possum 'way down in Alabam'! Yum yum!"Location unspecified. August 1922.
Wikimedia Commons Vaudeville comedy duo Miller and Lyles at work.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 A young Bijou Fernandez, who would later become an early Hollywood star, in blackface.New York. Circa 1880-1900.
New York Public Library The sheet music to the offensively-named song "All Coons Looks Alike To Me."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 Performer Eddie Cantor, in full blackface, poses in front of an ad for Broadway's famous "Ziegfield Follies," letting people know that his minstrel act will be a part of the show.New York City, New York. Circa 1917-1920.
Wikimedia Commons The Six Brown Brothers, a clown-and-minstrel act from Canada.Location unspecified. Circa 1915-1920.
Wikimedia Commons Ernest Hogan, the composer of "All Coons Look Alike To Me."Location unspecified. 1909.
Wikimedia Commons Samuel S. Sanford dressed up as a woman, playing the role of the "mammy" character in a minstrel show.Cambridge, Massachusetts. Circa 1890-1905.
TCS 1.935, Harvard Theatre Collection/Harvard University Thomas Dilward, a minstrel singer who performed under the name "Japanese Tommy."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 1855-1865
Library of Congress Miller and Lyles act out their "prizefighting" routine.New York City, New York. 1910.
New York Public Library A man dressed up as the "mulatto wench" character.Date and location unspecified.
New York Public Library An advertisement for a "big minstrel carnival."New York City, New York. 1899.
Wikimedia Commons Minstrel performers John Queen and William H. West in blackface, dressed up as a man and his wife.Location unspecified. Circa 1880-1902.
Wikimedia Commons George Primrose, a white comedian who made his living with his face painted black.Chicago, Illinois. Date unspecified.
TCS 1.935, Harvard Theatre Collection/Harvard University The Working Boys' Glee Club and Minstrel Group, an amateur group of boys, none older than 15, who dress up in blackface to amuse their friends.Fall River, Massachusetts. June 20, 1916.
Wikimedia Commons Mardi Gras revelers hit the streets, three of them decked out in blackface.New Orleans, Louisiana. 1934.
Wikimedia Commons The sheet music to the minstrel parody song called "De Coon Wid de Auburn Hair."New York City, New York. 1899.
New York Public Library Two men in blackface, their drums and trombones at their side.New York. 1912.
New York Public Library Charles Mack and George Moran, two vaudeville comedians who performed as the "Two Black Crows."Location unspecified. November 1, 1929.
Wikimedia Commons The entertainment in a traveling circus. The band sits in the center, with four minstrel performers on their sides.Date and location unspecified.
New York Public Library A man in blackface plucks at the banjo.Date and location unspecified.
New York Public Library Vaudeville comedian Barry Maxwell in blackface.Columbus, Ohio. Circa 1900-1919.
TCS 1.935, Harvard Theatre Collection/Harvard University An amateur minstrel show put on by volunteers from around the village.North Hampton, New Hampshire. Circa 1930-1950.
Wikimedia Commons Vaudeville entertainers Simms and Wiley.Chicago, Illinois. Circa 1920-1935.
New York Public Library The sheet music to the song "The Coon with the Big White Spot."New York City, New York. 1895.
New York Public Library White comedian Billy B. Van in character wearing blackface.Chicago, Illinois. Circa 1900-1919.
TCS 1.935, Harvard Theatre Collection/Harvard University A still image from an Otto Reutter film shows men in blackface trying to tie up a white man.Germany. 1912.
Wikimedia Commons Vaudeville performers Bert Williams and George Walker. Both men are black, but Bert Williams has painted his face anyway.New York City, New York. 1903.
Wikimedia Commons Bert Williams, dressed in blackface.Location unspecified. 1921
Wikimedia Commons The sheet music for a minstrel song advertises that it was written by "two real coons."New York City, New York. 1897.
New York Public Library Characters in blackface get excited over trapping and getting ready to eat a possum.Location unspecified. 1889
New York Public Library Minstrels in blackface came out for every occasion — even for the all-black crowd at the unveiling of this Knights of Columbus building.Louisville, Kentucky. August 1918.
Wikimedia Commons Star of the silver screen and early Hollywood elite Raymond Hitchcock, here seen in blackface.Chicago, Illinois. 1919.
TCS 1.551, Harvard Theatre Collection/Harvard University George Griffin, dressed up as the "dandy" character, tries to woo Rollins Collins, dressed up as a woman to play the part of the "mulatto wench."Location unspecified. 1855.
Wikimedia Commons An amateur saxophone sextet, the leader dressed up in blackface and the others as clowns.Omaha, Nebrasaka. 1921.
Wikimedia Commons Uncle Mack's Broadstairs Minstrels.Kent, England. 1908.
Wikimedia Commons
A Disturbing Illustrative History Of Blackface In America View GalleryThroughout 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.
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