Early white performers in blackface used burnt cork and later greasepaint or shoe polish to blacken their skin and exaggerate their lips, often wearing woolly wigs, gloves, tailcoats, or ragged clothes to complete the transformation. In both the United States and Britain, blackface was most commonly used in the minstrel performance tradition, which it both predated and outlasted. The Black and White Minstrel Show on television lasted until 1978. It was practised in Britain as well, surviving longer than in the U.S. History within the United States The Dreadnought hoaxers in Abyssinian costumeīlackface was a performance tradition in the American theater for roughly 100 years beginning around 1830. that Strausbaugh sees as crucial to blackface. However, Othello and other plays of this era did not involve the emulation and caricature of "such supposed innate qualities of Blackness as inherent musicality, natural athleticism", etc. White people routinely portrayed the black characters in the Elizabethan and Jacobean theater (see English Renaissance theatre), most famously in Othello (1604).
The journalist and cultural commentator John Strausbaugh places it as part of a tradition of "displaying Blackness for the enjoyment and edification of white viewers" that dates back at least to 1441, when captive West Africans were displayed in Portugal. There is no consensus about a single moment that constitutes the origin of blackface. Seuss depicting blackface-styled caricatures of Black people
In the United States, blackface declined in popularity beginning in the 1940s and into the civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, and was generally considered highly offensive, disrespectful, and racist by the turn of the 21st century, though the practice (or similar-looking ones) continues in other countries. Early in the 20th century, blackface branched off from the minstrel show and became a form in its own right.
By the middle of the century, blackface minstrel shows had become a distinctive American artform, translating formal works such as opera into popular terms for a general audience. In the United States, the practice became common during the 19th century and contributed to the spread of racial stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky on the plantation" or the " dandified coon". West minstrel show poster, originally published by the Strobridge Lithographing Company, shows the transformation from a person of European descent to a caricature of a dark-skinned person of African descent.īlackface is a form of theatrical makeup used predominantly by non- black people to portray a caricature of a black person. For other uses, see Blackface (disambiguation).
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