Details

Subject(s)

• African Americans—Performances and portrayals [Browse]
• African Americans—Caricatures and cartoons [Browse]
• Minstrel shows [Browse]
• Popular music—United States—19th century—Texts [Browse]
• Enslaved persons—United States—Songs and music [Browse]

Library of Congress genre(s)

• Minstrel music [Browse]
• Notated music [Browse]
• Playbills (Posters) [Browse]
• Songbooks [Browse]
• Theater programs [Browse]

Compiled/​Created

1700-1916 1820-1900.

Summary note

Portrayals of African Americans in popular culture. Includes prints, playbills, sheet music, songbooks, songsheets, and other ephemera. Items range in date from 1700 to 1916, but the majority of the collection ranges from 1820 to 1900.

Contents

• PRINTS: View of Negroes washing for diamonds at Mandango on the River Jigitonhonha in Cerro do Frio / J.G. Warnicke (1812).
• Plantation hoes sold by Joseph Smith of Sheffield (1816).
• Charles Mackey / William Roberts after J. Tillotson (1820s).
• Fancy ball : Jim Crow dance & chorus / John Doyle (1841).
• The secession bubble / J.H. Bufford's Lith. (1860s).
• Brer Thuldy's statue : liberty frightenin de world, to be stuck up on Bedbug's Island - Jarsey Flats, opposite de United States / Thomas Worth (Currier & Ives, 1884).
• PLAYBILLS: Theatre Royal, Birmingham : for the benefit of Mr. S.W. Butler, George Butler, the Africans (1825).
• Theatre Royal, Birmingham ... the Slave ; Zelinda by Miss Love (1827).
• Theatre Royal, Liverpool ... Mr. Sinclair, the Slave ; the Beggar's opera (1828).
• Surrey Theatre ... Dred! (1856).
• Theatre Royal, Worcester ... the great American troupe of real negroes, freed slaves, and jubilee singers ; Uncle Tom's cabin (1879).
• Argyle Theatre of Varieties, Birkenhead [3 playbills], (1894, 1903, 1901).
• Haverly's Minstrels [2 playbills].
• SHEET MUSIC: The Ethiopian banjo quadrilles / by J M Smith (1830).
• Dearest May & Carry me back to ole Virginny sung by the Ethiopian Serenaders (1847).
• Piccaninnies' bed-time dance by Theo. Bonheur (1890s).
• Mammy's little coal black rose / lyric by Raymond Egan ; music by Richard A. Whiting (1916).
• Phoebe Morel : I had a dream, a happy dream : a Georgian ballad.
• SHEET MUSIC COVERS: In the Strand, or, I wish I was with Nancy / Concanen & Lee, lith. (1861).
• Topsy's song / Louisa Corbaux.
• SONGBOOKS Songs sung by the famous Canadian Jubilee Singers, the Royal Paragon Male Quartette, plantation lullabies (1880s).
• Complete repertoire of the songs, ballads, and plantation melodies sung by the Moore and Burgess' Minstrels.
• SONGSHEETS [Album of 16 songsheets] Wandering refugee, Moonlight on the lake, California brothers ... [and 13 others] (1870s).
• [Album of 6 songsheets] The old log cabin in the dell ... [and 5 others] (1880s).
• NEWSPAPERS: The London gazette, 1700 June 3.
• Federal intelligencer and Baltimore daily gazette, 1795 January 7.
• The Barbadian, 1833 April 27.
• PHOTOGRAPHS: Two minstrel performers (1860s).
• GCB fête 1907 amateur minstrel troupe.
• Group portrait of a blackface minstrel troupe of boys.
• BROADSIDE: Newcastle petitions against the African slave trade (1814, July 5).
• EPHEMERA: Juba at Vauxhall (Illustrated London news clipping, 1848 August 5).
• Duprez and Benedict’s Minstrels complimentary ticket 1871-72.
• Pen and ink drawing of two blackface entertainers / S Calvert (1879).
• Program and ticket stub for “In old Kentucky,” Boston Theatre, 1894 November 3.
• Advertisement: Genuine arrow root imported by W. Weston, Jun. & Co. African warehouse, London.
• Advertisement: J. M. Mathias, tobacconist and newsman, Ratcliff.
• Merry hours! chromolithograph greeting card.
• Sunlight Soap chromolithograph advertisement.
• Chromolithograph “scraps.”

Show 37 more Contents items

Source acquisition

Princeton copy 1 This collection is based on 4 copies of Marsh's The story of the Jubilee Singers with their songs. Those 4 copies have been cataloged individually.

OCLC

1524325716

Statement on responsible collection description

Princeton University Library aims to describe library materials in a manner that is respectful to the individuals and communities who create, use, and are represented in the collections we manage. Read more...