A History of the Blackface and Minstrelsy - Notes

Minstrel show was an American form of entertainment developed in the early 19th century.
Minstrel shows were very popular.
Founded on the comic enactment of racial stereotypes.
Minstrel shows emerged from in the early 1830s in Northeastern states.
Exaggerated portrayal of African American music, culture, vernacular English (colloquial language, slang, dialect) for entertainment.

Each show included:
- comic skits
- dancing
- music
- performances

They mainly mocked people from an African descent.
The people who performed were white people who put make up on (blackface). Only white people
were allowed to perform.
The show would present the 'black people' as lazy, backward in knowledge.
Blackened their faces with burnt cork to lampoon Blacks, performing songs and skits that sentimentalised slave life on Southern plantations. Blacks were shown as naive buffoons who sang and danced the days away.

Unemployment
Savages
Uncivilised
Uneducated

Coon character
- adult male
- violent
- uneducated

Mammie character
- overweight black maid
- mother figure

Pickaninny character
- un-kept
- un-educated
- child (male)