Read complete books and articles on: Minstrel Shows

Minstrel Show - stage entertainment by white performers made up as blacks. Thomas Dartmouth Rice, who gave (c.1828) the first solo performance in blackface and introduced the song-and-dance act Jim Crow, is called the "father of American minstrelsy." The first public performance of a minstrel show was given in 1843 by the Virginia Minstrels, headed by Daniel Decatur Emmett

15 of the Best Books and Articles on: Minstrel Shows

as selected by Questia librarians

1.

Digging the Africanist Presence in American Performance: Dance and Other Contexts (Chap. 6 "Past Imperfect: Performance, Power, and Politics on the Minstrel Stage") » Read Now
by Brenda Dixon Gottschild. 190 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

This ground-breaking work brings dance into current discussions of the African presence in American culture. Dixon Gottschild argues that the Africanist aesthetic has been "invisibilized" by the pervasive force of racism. This book provides evidence to correct and balance the record, investigating...
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This ground-breaking work brings dance into current discussions of the African presence in American culture. Dixon Gottschild argues that the Africanist aesthetic has been "invisibilized" by the pervasive force of racism. This book provides evidence to correct and balance the record, investigating the Africanist presence as a conditioning factor in shaping American performance, onstage and in everyday life. She examines the Africanist presence in American dance forms particularly in George Balanchine's Americanized style of ballet, (post)modern dance, and blackface minstrelsy. Hip hop culture and rap are related to contemporary performance, showing how a disenfranchised culture affects the culture in power.
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2.

Tin Pan Alley: A Chronicle of the American Popular Music Racket (Chap. 3 "Pearls of Minstrelsy") » Read Now
by Isaac Goldberg. 344 pgs.

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...the craze for size in minstrel shows there developed the...songs heard in the old minstrel shows--Woods, Christys, Bryants...Wild, remembering their shows and still seeing...
3.

Horrible Prettiness: Burlesque and American Culture ("Burlesque and Minstrelsy" begins on p. 163) » Read Now
by Robert C. Allen. 350 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...Rentz-Santley Company 164 Minstrel company sheet music cover 167...American urban society. What it shows about burlesque sheds light on...dime museums, concert saloons...
4.

American Popular Music and Its Business: The First Four Hundred Years from 1790-1909 ("The Arrival of the Minstrel Show" begins on p. 170) » Read Now
by Russell Sanjek. 484 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

This volume focuses on developments in the music business in the twentieth century, including vaudeville, music boxes, the relationship of Hollywood to the music business, the "fall and rise" of the record business in the 1930s, new technology (TV, FM, and the LP record) after World War II, the...
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This volume focuses on developments in the music business in the twentieth century, including vaudeville, music boxes, the relationship of Hollywood to the music business, the "fall and rise" of the record business in the 1930s, new technology (TV, FM, and the LP record) after World War II, the dominance of rock-and-roll and the huge increase in the music business during the 1950s and 1960s, and finally the changing music business scene from 1967 to the present, especially regarding government regulations, music licensing, and the record business.
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5.

Festive Revolutions: The Politics of Popular Theater and the San Francisco Mime Troupe (Chap. 4 "Minstrel Shows and the Play of Stereotypes") » Read Now
by Claudia Orenstein. 192 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

The history & lineage of a Bay Area performance troupe that blends politics & festivity.
6.

Displacing Whiteness: Essays in Social and Cultural Criticism ("Minstrel Shows, Affirmative Action Talk, and Angry White Men: Marking Racial Otherness in the 1990s" begins on p. 311) » Read Now
by Ruth Frankenberg. 361 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...Vron Ware 283 Minstrel Shows, Affirmative Action Talk, and...nineteenth- and late-twentieth-century minstrel shows project stereotypic images of...anti-affirmative action...
7.

Musical Theatre in America: Papers and Proceedings of the Conference on the Musical Theatre in America ("Early Minstrel Show Music" begins on p. 71) » Read Now
by Glenn Loney. 444 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...DEANE L. ROOT 67 Early Minstrel Show Music, 1843-1852 ROBERT...Celestial Queen of the Dumb Shows MARY GRACE SWIFT 291...their own contributions to the shows success...
8.

The Minstrel Show Goes to the Great War: Zora Neale Hurston's Mass Cultural Other, in MELUS » Read Now
by John Trombold. 23 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...talkies" of Hollywood. Seven minstrel shows were on such programs by May of...African American doughboys, their minstrel shows, and their singing as seen by...experienced...
9.

Ira Aldridge: Shakespeare and Minstrelsy, in ATQ (The American Transcendental Quarterly) » Read Now
by Nicholas M. Evans. 24 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...underscores how minstrelsy and related forms...like "variety" shows, were trans-Atlantic...he speaks in "minstrel show black dialect...MacDonald also shows how the...
10.

The Ira Aldridge Troupe: Early Black Minstrelsy in Philadelphia, in African American Review » Read Now
by Jack Shalom. 6 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...endorsement, the reporter proclaimed that "we should like some of our white minstrel friends to see one of these performances. They would profit by it." And indeed, as...
11.

The Minstrel in the Parlor: Nineteenth-Century Sheet Music and the Domestication of Blackface Minstrelsy, in ATQ (The American Transcendental Quarterly) » Read Now
by Stephanie Dunson. 17 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...as the lyrics sung in minstrel shows. In Behind the Burnt...offering depictions of full minstrel troupes--four or five...displayed. These kinds of shows still catered...
12.

Du Bois and the Minstrels, in MELUS » Read Now
by Scott Herring. 15 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

...1850s with the popularity of "Tom shows" (minstrel versions of Uncle Toms Cabin...Ephs Dream. He continues: "The minstrel shows first part invariably included...very often...
13.

Eugene Stratton and Early Ragtime in Britain, in Black Music Research Journal » Read Now
by Michael Pickering. 30 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

...large, the audiences of minstrel shows in Britain had accepted...and development in the minstrel shows of both North America...blackface acts and shows afforded a period...
14.

African-American Performance and Theater History: A Critical Reader (Chap. 9 "Black Minstrelsy and Double Inversion, Circa 1890") » Read Now
by Harry J. Elam Jr., David Krasner. 367 pgs.

Collections: Literature, Entire Library

African-American Performance and Theatre History is an anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America. Assembled by two respected scholars in black theater and composed of essays from acknowledged authorities in the field (Joseph Roach and...
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African-American Performance and Theatre History is an anthology of critical writings that explores the intersections of race, theater, and performance in America. Assembled by two respected scholars in black theater and composed of essays from acknowledged authorities in the field (Joseph Roach and Henry Louis Gates, Jr. among other), this volume is organized into four sections representative of the ways black theater, drama, and performance past and present interact and enact continuous social, cultural, and political dialogues. The premise behind the book is that analyzing African-American theater and performance traditions offers insight into how race has operated and continues to operate in American society. The only one-volume collection of its kind, this volume is likely to become the central reference for those studying black theater.
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15.

Images of Blacks in American Culture: A Reference Guide to Information Sources (Chap. 2 "Blacks on the Musical Stage") » Read Now
by Jessie Carney Smith. 392 pgs.

Collections: Entire Library

"The 10 essays here explore the images of blacks in historical contemporary American culture. Negative and stereotypical images of blacks have been deeply embedded in our art, music, literature, film, theater, and other forms of expression. On the other hand, as the preface states, black artists and...
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"The 10 essays here explore the images of blacks in historical contemporary American culture. Negative and stereotypical images of blacks have been deeply embedded in our art, music, literature, film, theater, and other forms of expression. On the other hand, as the preface states, black artists and others have also celebrated images of strength, beauty, and achievement.' Reflecting the complexity of the relationship between the races, these two elements are often intertwined. This reference work explores these images, both positive and negative, and their historical development and impact on both black and American culture. . . . Its unique qualities are the discussions and sources for studying and understanding those artifacts as well as the provision of a historical perspective on the images." Reference Books Bulletin
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