Tag Archives: minstrel shows

The Cakewalk: A Predeccesor

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William A. Pratt’s Following Up The Band: An African Sonata for Piano, published in 1900, presents an example of how African American influences were making their way into notated music 1.

Following Up The Band: Cake Walk Characteristic Two Step March

 

 

The piece, written as a piano sonata, mimics the sound of a marching band parading through the streets, taking on the style of a characteristic two-step march. The cover of the score, showing men in tailcoats and a woman in Victorian dress, shows imagery associated with the cakewalk, a dance that played a role in shaping early American music. This imagery, along with the music itself, suggests a blend of the social and cultural practices of the time.

 

 

The cakewalk, a dance that was originally created to mock the European minuet, was adopted by Minstrel shows in the late 19th century. As John Jeremiah Sullivan points out, it began as a satire but was adopted by white performers as part of a caricature in their shows, creating a layered and looped irony: African Americans making fun of the minuet, and white people, in turn, making fun of the cakewalk2.

This irony, noted by writers like Amiri Baraka, reflects the complex relationship between African American culture and how mainstream society consumed it, particularly within minstrelsy3. Pratt’s African Sonata for Piano can be seen as part of this broader context. It combines the structure of a European sonata with a two-step rhythm that characterizes marching band music. I can not point to much syncopation or polyrhythms that would have been characteristic of a cakewalk, in the score, which makes me wonder about the performance practice for a sonata with the subtitle An African Sonata for Piano. 

Following up the band : an African sonata for piano

As we learn about the evolution of jazz, ragtime, and blues, the connection of the cakewalk becomes more apparent. Its influence on later musical forms is evident in works like Pratt’s, which, though written for piano, paints a picture of a marching band and the energy of a parade. The imagery on the score’s cover reinforces the connection to the cakewalk, reflecting the cultural dynamics of the time, both celebratory and ironic. This sonata serves as an example of how African American culture, despite being appropriated and caricatured in many contexts, was central to shaping later forms of American music as we know it.

 

1 William A. Pratt, Following up the band : cake walk characteristic two step march (New York, NY: K. Dehnhoff, 1900), accessed October 22 2024, https://dc.lib.unc.edu/cdm/compoundobject/collection/sheetmusic/id/35013/rec/1

2 Sullivan, John Jeremiah. “‘Shuffle Along’ and the Lost History of Black Performance in America” New York Times. March 24, 2016. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/03/27/magazine/shuffle-along-and-the-painful-history-of-black-performance-in-america.html

3 Baraka, Amiri. Blues People: The Negro Experience in White America and the Music that Developed from it. New York, NY: William Morrow and Company. https://search.alexanderstreet.com/view/work/bibliographic_entity|bibliographic_details|452295.

Minstrelsy in the USA

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The act of blackface minstrelsy was a form of entertainment in white American circles that started in the 1830’s and fell from popularity in the 1920’s.4 It serves to imitate the culture of African Americans, and consists of white performers who painted their faces black to resemble African Americans. The act itself was incredibly racist, serving to exaggerate and exemplify harmful stereotypes of African Americans. Some examples of this are exaggerated characters, deliberately painting a smile on their faces to perpetuate the lie that black people are happy to be enslaved, and highly exaggerating elements of African American culture, such as their dancing, singing, and vernacular. The use of music also helped with this, as music is a powerful way to shape opinion, and minstrel shows were not found without music accompanying. By the 1850’s, the peak of minstrelsy, the typical minstrel show had two parts: the first part with comic exchanges, ballads, and solo performances, and the second part which was vaudeville with specialty acts, clog dances, jigs, female impersonations, and burlesque of popular dramas.4 And the craziest part: these performances were normalized within the white community, being one of the most popular forms of entertainment of it’s time. There were ten theaters in New York alone dedicated to minstrelsy.4

An advertisement for a minstrel show. New Orleans Daily Creole; November 19, 1856

Minstrel troupes were most popular in the North, but were found throughout the United States. Some more well known troupes would tour often, as shown in the primary source above. The source is from the November 18, 1856 copy of the New Orleans Daily Creole, and advertises the third week of the celebrated Campbell Minstrels, their director Matt Peel, and their programs of “burlesque, negro farce, and black vigils” as well as a show entitled “plantation past times.”1 The advertisement also proclaims that the shows are “Negro Minstrelsy, by the Model Troupe of the World!!”1

The cover of the score for “Poor Nelly Ann,” composed by the Campbell Minstrels, depicting the troupe in (bottom photos) and out (top photos) of blackface.

This advertisement is a great example of the negative, exaggerated, and racist nature of these performances. For one, the whole troupe and the director are in fact white blackface performers, who have taken African American culture and created a negative stereotypical experience.

The program from a Campbell Minstrels’ show in Massachusetts in 1852.

In a program from the Campbell Minstrels from a performance in Massachusetts in 1852, there are examples of dances (quickstep) and music (banjo duet, drum and tambourine solos, bone castanet) that exemplify the African American culture.2 There are three sections, and the third section is titled with a derogatory term towards African Americans preceded by the word “plantation,” signifying that they are emulating slaves.2

However, something interesting about both the advertisement and the program is that they both advertise burlesque, which led to vaudeville, and ultimately musical theater. These elements of stage performance are still present today, and many people are unaware of the influence that minstrelsy has had over culture today. The horrific, racist act of minstrelsy may be dead today, but we still must be aware of how it is baked into the pie of American culture. We must be aware and consider these results so that we can go forward with more awareness, sensitivity, and a more inclusive headspace so that such acts of degradation will not happen again.

SOURCES
1. “Campbell Minstrels.” In New Orleans Daily Creole. New Orleans, Louisiana, November, 19, 1856. https://infoweb.newsbank.com

2. “West & Peel’s old and original Campbell Minstrels!” in American Broadsides and Ephemera. Worcester, Massachusetts. 1852. https://infoweb.newsbank.com

3. “Poor Nelly Ann’ / composed and sung by the Campbell Minstrels.” 1848. https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/poor-nelly-ann-composed-and-sung-by-the-campbell-minstrels./2023272

4. Salamone, Frank A. “Minstrelsy” from Encyclopedia of American Studies. 2021. https://search.credoreference.com/articles/Qm9va0FydGljbGU6NjcwNjc=

The truth behind Minstrel shows

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Before we dive into Minstrel shows and what they exactly are, we should take a look at the history of the word “Minstrel” and its multiple meanings. I think it is important that we educate ourselves and others and learn the true history behind these shows and their meaning. In Hebrew, a minstrel is a player of a stringed instrument. There are references in the Book of Samuel of David as a minstrel playing for Saul.1

A little bit later, we find that a minstrel is a medieval poet and musician who sang or recited while accompanying himself on a stringed instrument, either as a member of a noble household or as an itinerant troubadour. As you can see, there are many different definitions of minstrel and how it truly hasn’t changed very much over many centuries. 2

Then we reach the early 1830’s and we find that there are performances called Minstrel shows. “The first minstrel shows were performed in 1830s New York by white performers with blackened faces (most used burnt cork or shoe polish) and tattered clothing who imitated and mimicked enslaved Africans on Southern plantations. These performances characterized blacks as lazy, ignorant, superstitious, hypersexual, and prone to thievery and cowardice.” 3 It is important to note that when the word “Minstrel” originated, that person or persons were not being used to humiliate an entire race. We also need to be educated that the word “Minstrel” had not become popular with the definition of blackface until the 1800’s.

Continuing with blackface in the 1800’s, this small clip from a newspaper article in 1856 is quite the shocker. The parts that stood out to me were how “cheap” the entries to the shows were and that they essentially happened daily. The specific group that was performing that night were called the Campbell Minstrels and a few songs from their set lists include: “Darkies on the levee,” “Old Dan Tucker,” “Gold versus postage stamps,” and plantation scenes.

 

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What’s White Christmas without Minstrelsy?

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White Americans have always love nostalgia and cozy feelings of their past. What could be more nostalgic than a white family curled up on a couch watching Irving Berlin’s White Christmas? If you noticed something wrong about that sentence, good. The movie is all about nostalgia with the actors “dreaming of a white Christmas” or singing tunes such as “Gee, I wish I was back in the army.” In the film White Christmas there is an iconic scene called the Minstrel Number.

This was a song that was a medley written by Irving Berlin and performed by Bing Crosby, Danny Kaye, and Rosemary Clooney. The song “Id Rather See a Minstrel Show” opens the medley when sequels into “Mr. Bones.” “Mr. Bones” has Clooney singing of “minstrel men we miss” and “when Georgie Primrose used to sing and dance to a song like this.” Now Primrose was a white vaudeville song-and-dance man who wore blackface in the late 19th century. However, to really feel the effects of these lyrics popping up in one of America’s favorite nostalgic movies we have to go back to another movie of Irving Berlin with the infamous Bing Crosby; Holiday Inn; in which “White Christmas” was first sang.

While Holiday Inn was released in 1942, by 1954 when White Christmas was released it was already considered ill of someone to black up their faces. In Holiday Inn there is one song in particular that stands out and is often CUT out of the movie during showings. This is “Abraham” performed by Bing Crosby in full black face on Abraham’s birthday.

All the musicians and dancers around him are also in full black face. Only 12 years before White Christmas and 12 years before performing in black face was looked down upon, black face performances amongst major mainstream stars at the time was very acceptable. This brings me to the sheet music of both “Abraham” and “I’d Rather See a Minstrel Show.” Upon researching minstrel music in pop culture I came across the beloved Irving Berlin and Bing Crosby; both loved by generations of Americans. I saw that Irving Berlin had had both “Mandy” and “Id Rather See a Minstrel Show” published in Ziegfield Follies of 1919. While “Mandy” was of easy access, the Minstrel Show number was almost impossible to come by. I spent quite some time following every bunny trail I could to get to the sheet music of the Minstrel Show number but to no avail. Recalling Holiday Inn and Minstrel themes in that movie I tried to find sheet music to “Abraham.” This piece was also surprisingly hard to find on Sheet Music Consortium and I was eventually redirected to Baylor University’s Digital Libraries before I found it.

These two pieces are important as they bind exemplify some of America’s most beloved actors and song/screenwriters. They humble us as they remind us that none of us were too good for blackface and the enjoyment America wrongfully sought in it. It also reminds us of how minstrelsy and still be in pop culture of today and the elements of life that are important to our cultures.

Bibliography
Abraham : From the Paramount picture, Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn. Abraham : from the Paramount picture, Irving Berlin’s Holiday Inn – Quartex site. (n.d.). Retrieved October 26, 2021, from https://digitalcollections-baylor.quartexcollections.com/Documents/Detail/abraham-from-the-paramount-picture-irving-berlins-holiday-inn/1129932?item=1142940.

Library Of Congress. (n.d.). I’d rather see a minstrel show – library of congress public domain search. Library Of Congress. Retrieved October 26, 2021, from https://loc.getarchive.net/media/id-rather-see-a-minstrel-show-2.

Minstrelsy and American Popular Culture

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Content Warning: Offensive language, racial slurs

There’s a common and very problematic sentiment in America that racism and racial oppression are things of the past, and this sentiment certainly applies to minstrelsy as well. While I like to think the majority of Americans would be able agree that minstrelsy was a deeply racist phenomena, a much smaller percentage has a grasp on just how influential it was and still in American popular culture. It’s easy to box it off, to say it was a bad episode of our history, to confine it to the past. But this is certainly not true. The research I did for this blog post made it abundantly clear just how recently minstrelsy was big, and just how absurd it is to claim it has no influence today.

The primary source I focused on was the sheet music for a minstrel song written in 1912, “At Uncle Tom’s Cabin Door”, music by Rubey Cowan and lyrics by Chas. Bayha. The lyrics of this song are extremely racist, romanticizing plantation life and claiming that enslaved people were happier before the Civil War. This recording is from 1913, and I’ve included the lyrics below. The picture shown in the video is the cover of the sheet music.

“In Eighteen Sixty, In Eighteen Sixty,
Those happy days before Emancipation,
‘way down in Dixie, ‘way down in Dixie,
merry darkies you would see.
They had their sorrows, that’s quite true,
But there were happy hours too,
Let’s go back once more,
Back before the war,
and we’ll see some jubilee.

CHORUS.
See them dancing around,
Watch them prance on the ground,
Uncle Tom is gay, troubles fade away,
Hear them after each encore,
Roar for more,
Banjo’s strumming a tune,
Topsy’s acting like a loon,
There’s some celebration on the old plantation
At Uncle Tom’s Cabin door.

Just hear them singing, Just hear them singing,
Those good ole darkey tunes they’re harmonizing,
Just see them swinging, just see them swinging
to the strains of “Old Black Joe.”
Here comes the Marsa from his ride,
There’s little Eva by his side,
Sime Legree’s away, bloodhounds are at play,
Those were happy, happy days.

Now, this overt racism is probably not at all surprising even if you know almost nothing about minstrelsy. But what caught my attention about this example is the composers, Cowan and Bayha. Neither of them are especially well known, but what they are known for is not minstrelsy. It’s other forms of popular culture.

We’ll start with Charles Bayha. He was a New Yorker best known for writing wartime songs during World War I, including I’d be proud to be the mother of a soldier. What little information I could find about him made no mention that he wrote minstrel songs, even though he evidently did. He died in 1957, as did Rubey Cowan, coincidentally. I bring this up because 1957 is still within living memory for some Americans.

Rubey Cowan was possibly a bit more well known, given that he had an obituary written in the New York Times. Cowan is described as a TV executive, composer, and music publisher – he worked at Hollywood. I think what is the most striking to me about this is that Cowan – and many others who worked in entertainment – had careers that spanned the time from when minstrelsy was big to when TV was big. It simply was not that long ago that big executives at Hollywood had begun their careers in the minstrelsy industry. From this research it’s not hard to imagine the strong tie between minstrelsy and many other forms of American popular culture.

Bibliography

Bayha, Charles Anthony, William J Halley, and Rubey Cowan. At Uncle Tom’s cabin door. 1913. Audio. https://www.loc.gov/item/jukebox-262541/.

Cowan, Rubey and Charles Bayha. At Uncle Tom’s Cabin Door. York Music Co., New York. 1912. Mississippi State University Libraries, Digital Collections. https://cdm16631.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/SheetMusic/id/24824

“Rubey Cowan, 66, Dies”. New York Times. July 30, 1957, 23. https://nyti.ms/3jxAWQt

 

The Birth and Popularization of the Banjo

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From bluegrass to jazz to ragtime and more, the banjo is everywhere in American music. Historians agree that early versions of the American banjo were brought to the Americas by enslaved Africans who were taken from West Africa (Bluestein). These instruments included a drum-like body made from a gourd with animal skin stretched over the top and a fretless wooden neck (Allen).

The use of the banjo by enslaved Africans on American plantations is well documented in the writings of white slaveholders (Bluestein). The earliest known American painting of a banjo, called, The Old Plantation was created by white slaveholder John Rose between 1785 and 1795, and depicts a group of enslaved Africans musicking on Rose’s plantation in South Carolina (Encyclopedia Virginia).

But how did the banjo make it into the mainstream? The answer, I found, is through minstrel shows. Minstrel shows were a racist form of American musical entertainment developed in the 1830s where white performers would darken their faces and perform caricatures of African Americans (National Museum of African American History & Culture).  After learning the banjo from enslaved Africans, white minstrel performers began to incorporate the instrument into their shows. Below are two examples of minstrel posters from the Library of Congress Minstrel Poster Collection that depict a caricature of a Black man playing the banjo (Links here and here), and a recording of a minstrel song can be found at the Library of Congress National Jukebox (TW: Racism and Racial Slurs).

Of course, not all white people who learned the banjo from black musicians used it for performance in minstrel shows. In her Keynote Address to the International Bluegrass Music Association, banjo player Rhiannon Giddens described the formation of Bluegrass music happening gradually as lower-class people, both black and white, shared musical ideas with one another (Povelones). However, it was the wild popularity of minstrelsy that first propelled the banjo into the mainstream in the early 1800s.