Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture
William J. Mahar
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. Drawing on an unprecedented archival study of playbills, newspapers, sketches, monologues, and music, William J. Mahar explores the racist practices of minstrel entertainers and considers their performances as troubled representations of ethnicity, class, gender, and culture in the nineteenth century.
Mahar 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. Locating minstrel performances within their ... Read more
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About William J. Mahar
Reviews for Behind the Burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture
Charles Hamm, Journal of the American Musicological Society