1843

In 1843 a variety act calling themselves “The Virginia Minstrels” made their debut in New York City, initiating what would soon become the most popular form of stage entertainment in America—minstrel shows.

Minstrel shows included music, singing, dancing, and comedy, and were a uniquely American form of theater. Many of the most iconic folk songs in American history originated as minstrel songs, including the Stephen Foster classics “Oh! Susanna,” “Camptown Races,” “Old Folks at Home (Way Down Upon the Suwanee River),” “Polly Wolly Doodle,” “Hard Times Come Again No More,” “My Old Kentucky Home,” and “Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair.” Minstrel shows were so popular that by 1850 there were at least ten theaters in New York City devoted almost exclusively to them.

The Virginia Minstrels are credited with writing “Jimmy Crack Corn” and “Old Dan Tucker.” The leader of the group, Daniel Decatur Emmett, is believed to have written “Dixie.”

Unfortunately, however, while the minstrel show formula was giving birth to American popular music, comedy, and theater, paving the way to vaudeville, and leaving an artistic legacy that continues in American popular culture and entertainment style today, it was also spreading and reinforcing degrading and offensive racial stereotypes. Minstrel show artists performed in blackface and with exaggerated and offensive dialects and mannerisms intended to mock and ridicule black people, so that the artistic legacy of the minstrel era will forever be tainted.

The first public performance by the Virginia Minstrels was in New York City on January 31, 1843, one hundred eighty years ago today.

By the way, none of the Virginia Minstrels were Virginians. Dan Emmett was from Ohio and the other three members of the group (Billy Whitlock, Dick Pelham, and Frank Bower) were from New York City.