| Series |
Music in American life
Music in American life. ^A223005
|
| Contents |
Revisiting minstrelsy's history: the playbill and contextual evidence -- The playbills -- Blackface parodies of American speech and rhetoric: burlesque lectures and sermons, political orations, comic dialogues, and stories -- Opera for the masses: burlesques of English and Italian opera -- Ethiopian sketches of American life: skits, farces, and afterpieces -- Blackface minstrelsy, masculinity, and social rituals in vocal and choral repertories -- Blackface minstrelsy and misogyny in vocal and choral repertories -- Conclusion -- Appendixes -- Representative minstrel companies and personnel in playbills and newspaper advertisements, 1843-60 ; Representative concluding numbers from selected minstrel shows, 1843-60 ; Song text frequency in selected Antebellum songsters. |
| Abstract |
The songs, dances, jokes, parodies, spoofs, and skits of blackface groups such as the Virginia Minstrels and Buckley's Serenaders became wildly popular in antebellum America. This book not only explores the racist practices of these entertainers but considers their performances as troubled representations of ethnicity, class, gender, and culture in the nineteenth century. This unprecedented archival study of playbills, newspapers, sketches, monologues, and music engages new sources previously not considered in twentieth-century scholarship. More than any other study of its kind, this book investigates the relationships between blackface comedy and other Western genres and traditions; between the music of minstrel shows and its European sources; and between "popular" and "elite" constructions of culture. By locating minstrel performances within their complex sites of production, the author offers a significant reassessment of the historiography of the field. This book promises to redefine the study of blackface minstrelsy, charting new directions for future inquiries by scholars in American studies, popular culture, and musicology. |
| Local note | Little-321246--305131024177Y |
| Bibliography note | Includes bibliographical references (pages 413-430) and index. |
| LCCN | 97033851 |
| ISBN | 025202396X (acid-free paper) |
| ISBN | 0252066960 (pbk.) |
