Minstrel show

A minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of portraying racial stereotypes of African Americans. Minstrel shows stereotyped black people as dimwitted, lazy, buffoonish, greedy, cowardly, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky. The shows aimed to confirm racist perceptions that black people were not civilized enough to be treated as equals. Post-Civil War, African American performers formed their own minstrel companies, such as the Georgia Minstrels in the 1860s, adopting blackface and the format to gain economic opportunities in a format whites had dominated, occasionally injecting authenticity or subversion into the caricatures amid ongoing white supremacist sentiments. Often during white minstrel shows, the humor centered on situations where, whenever black characters tried to become citizens, they would fail, and fail comically. Blackface minstrelsy was the first uniquely American form of theater, and for many minstrel shows emerged as brief burlesques and comic entr'actes in the early 1830s in the Northeastern states. They were developed into full-fledged art form in the next decade. By 1848, blackface minstrel shows were the national artform, translating formal art such as opera into popular terms for a general audience. During the 1830s and 1840s at the height of its popularity, it was at the epicenter of the American music industry. For several decades, it provided the means through which American whites viewed black people. On the one hand, it had strong racist aspects; on the other, it afforded white Americans more awareness, albeit distorted, of some aspects of black culture in the United States of America. During the Civil War, minstrelsy's popularity declined. By the turn of the 20th century the minstrel show enjoyed but a shadow of its former popularity, having been replaced...