162 Culture, Identity, and Community: From Slavery to the Presentwho were more likely to have frequented performances
and thus were familiar with the players who performed the
rowdy, sometimes bawdy routines. To draw on that audi-
ence, publishers depended on portraits of the most popular
performers in poses that suggested the dance that had be-
come all the rage. In contrast, later in the decade, when the
blackface tradition broadened, and the fully realized min-
strel show became the standard, cover illustration refl ected
the change by off ering depictions of full minstrel troupes—
four or fi ve blackened fi gures splayed ridiculously (oft en
suggestively) in their chairs, instruments prominently dis-
played. Th ese kinds of shows still catered primarily to male
audiences, and so publishers off ered sheet music covers
that simply refl ected the central image associated with the
performances—the absurdly contorted fi gures of the “in-
terlocutor,” “end men,” musicians, and balladeer.
However, by the mid-1840s and throughout the 1850s,
a notable shift in the representation of minstrel perform-
ers occurred in the design of sheet music cover art. Depic-
tions of upstanding, well-groomed white performers began
to appear along with the grotesque, black characters they
portrayed. Th e upright gents presented an element of el-
egance, of prestige, even as they perpetuated base parodies
of black identity. Cover illustrations seemed to position the
dapper entertainers as gentlemen callers, politely awaiting
introduction into the refi ned space of the family parlor, or
as handsome escorts inviting women to potentially join in
actually attending the fun and spectacle of a performance.
Th e white fi gures ushered the rollicking minstrel show into
the intimate confi nes of the American home, and sheet
music off ered the means for every parlor to be transformed
into a minstrel stage, every family gathering a potential op-
portunity to metaphorically “blacken up” and step into the
limelight. Simultaneously, the potentially threatening at-
mosphere of the minstrel theater was neutralized even as
gaudy racial misrepresentations remained in tact.
Th e material marks a reciprocal relationship in the
latter years of the 1840s between the refi ned aesthetics
of the parlor and the playful antics of blackface perfor-
mance of the stage. Th is “cross pollination” between the
stage and parlor (an exchange that both legitimized race
parody and licensed release in refi ned contexts) not only
expanded the market for blackface material but also broad-
ened acceptance of pervasive racial stereotypes across the
full spectrum of American society. Minstrel troupes such
as E. P. Christy’s Minstrels and the Virginia Serenadersopportunity to show his full talents in the broadest possible
context. Whatever the story or setting, the fi nal act was
punctuated with a major song-and-dance number off ering
a favorite melody (commonly the song “Miss Lucy Long”)
that the troupe and the audience might all sing together.
Th e success of the Virginia Minstrels not only rein-
vented minstrelsy but also reinvigorated it, and with the
format they originated, the minstrel show came to its full
realization. Th e new venue also provided promoters with
an opportunity to expand the audience base for blackface
performance. Realizing that broadening the appeal of live
minstrel performance only increased sales, enterprising
troupes took great eff orts to clean up their acts. By the end
of the 1840s, women and more refi ned classes began to re-
join the audience for blackface shows in increasing num-
bers. Although to some degree the shift can be attributed
to the eff orts of troupes that refashioned the traditional
material to meet the exacting standards of more sensitive
theatergoers, much of the change in the composition of
minstrel show audiences can also be traced to the market-
ing of the medium through the sheet music trade.
As early as 1840, music publishers began to appreciate
that by soft ening the suggestive edge of the lyrics and stan-
dardizing the more exotic and unfamiliar musical elements
that characterized live performance of minstrel musicians,
they might fi nd among the uncertain and restricted con-
fi nes of the parlor a willing and steady market. Potential
consumers among the parlor set had ready income and
would pay more for elegantly produced sheet music than
working-class lads might pay for cheaply produced lyric
sheets sold by street vendors. Also, those striving to meet
the exacting standards of parlor posture and propriety ap-
preciated the opportunity for fun and modest abandon of-
fered by carefully recalibrated minstrel songs.
Th e readjustment of the market for minstrel music
is refl ected in a shift in the composition of minstrel sheet
music covers in the early 1840s—a shift that suggests that
publishers of the material had designs on parlor commerce.
In the early years of the blackface show, cover art for min-
strel sheet music usually off ered images of the actual per-
formers who popularized the tunes on the minstrel stage.
Cover illustrations from the 1830s and early 1840s oft en
depict an individual performer: T. D. Rice, Peter Whit-
lock, or any of the other artists who fl ocked to reproduce
the wildly popular Jim Crow routine. In these early years,
music publishers undoubtedly targeted male consumers,