Jim Crow (Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice)
E.W. Clay. Jim Crow (Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice). C. 1835.
The minstrel show is one of the first indigenous forms of American entertainment. The tradition began in February 1843 when a group of four white men from Virginia, billed as the "Virgina Minstrels", applied black cork to their faces and performed a song-and-dance act in a small hall in New York City. The performance was such a success that the group was invited to tour to other cities and imitators sprang up immediately. These troups were successors to individual performers who imitated Negro singing and dancing. One of the earliest and most successful is the performer pictured here: Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice. Rice, a white actor, was inspired by an elderly Negro in Louisville, Kentucky crooning and dancing to a song that ended with the same chorus:
"Weel about and turn about and do jis so,
Eb'ry time I weel about I jump Jim Crow."
Rice's imitation of the Negro's song and dance routine was an astounding success that took him from Louisville to Cincinnati to Pittsburgh to Philadelphia and finally to New York City in 1832. He then performed to acclaim in London and Dublin, where the Irish in particular appreciated his blackface song-and-dance routine of "Jim Crow."
Description: Lithograph, published by Endicott Lith., 359 Broadway, New York City.
Location: Cover of sheet music published by Worth and Hall, No. 1, Franklin Square, New York City.
Source: Lester S. Levy. Picture the Songs: Lithographs from the Sheet Music of Nineteenth-Century America. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1976, p. 21.
