Exercise: Minstrel Shows and Race in the Antebellum U.S.


Instructions: Navigate your browser to the University of Virginia's e-text page on Mark Twain and minstrelsy at the URL below. The essay here has a specific focus on Twain and Huck Finn , but this focus leads to a larger examination of the minstrel show in American life. After reading the essay and examining the images (by clicking on the various in-text links), answer the following questions.

Visit URL:  http://etext.virginia.edu/railton/huckfinn/minstrl.html

Question 1:  Why do you think that the roles of blacks in these productions had to be played by whites in blackface, and African Americans were not allowed to perform those roles? What do you think the reasons are for this apparent irony? What do the restrictions on these roles tell us about attitudes toward race in this period?

Question 2:  What purposes do the use of such exaggerated dialect serve? Can you think of any present-day examples of the use of this type of overstated dialect? Do they serve the same purposes as the dialect in the earlier minstrel shows?

Question 3:  Given the predominantly racist environment of the antebellum U.S., how would you explain the enormous popularity of shows that revolved around white men masquerading as African Americans?

Question 4:  In the sample dialogues reproduced in the essay, what types of subjects and actions are involved? Do these traits give us clues as to larger conceptions about race and racial stereotypes during this era?

Question 5:  In your assessment, what are some of the reasons that minstrel shows were such a popular form of entertainment throughout the nineteenth century? How were they able to appeal to such a broad section of socio-economic classes within the white community? What does this tell us about the relative importance of class and race in the way Americans fashioned their self-identity?