Black and white minstrel jokes

America, Be Seated! The concept sounds like a contradiction in terms: Minstrelsy, a relic of 19th-century theater, disappeared from the American stage in the early s, and its defining component, blackface, was rooted in racism. Blackface minstrel shows originated in the s as a popular form of musical entertainment: white actors, made up with burnt cork or greasepaint, performed sentimental songs and comedy bits with exaggerated mannerisms based on black stereotypes. Boasting an foot-tall tire Ferris wheel sponsored by U. The Fair, he vowed, would have no point of view on art or culture or politics.

I was teaching business English to a group of students and we were discussing which accents they found difficult to understand. One man - older than the others - said Chinese. To demonstrate, he put on a Chinese accent and pulled the skin at the outer corners of his eyes. The rest of the students laughed. I was horrified.

Growing up in Ireland in the early seventies, there was one extremely popular show in 18 million households across Britain and Ireland. In fact, it was the most popular show on television. The show managed to insult more than black people. There was a puppet leprechaun called Murphy whose specialty was dumb Irish jokes. The minstrels themselves were white around the eyes and lips, all the rest blackface, resembling a balaclava.

The collection includes broadsheets, posters, newspaper clippings and programs, as well as pictures and photographs of minstrel show performers. In addition, a small portion of the collection contains sheet music and song and joke books. Range of dates : Size : 1. No further photoduplication of copies of material in the collection can be made when Princeton University Library does not own the original.