142 PART 1 | FROM COLONIZATION THROUGH THE CIVIL WAR
A song like “De Camptown Races,” with a melody strong enough to hold per-
formers closer to the prescribed notes, helped to channel unruliness into a more
controlled mode of expression.
One who worked to widen minstrelsy’s audience appeal was the impresario
and performer Edwin P. Christy. Born in 1815 in Philadelphia, he perfected his
blackface imitation as a comic singer in the 1830s, then founded his own troupe
in the early 1840s. Acting as the group’s manager, he also performed as interloc-
utor (master of ceremonies), played banjo, and sang. Christy’s Minstrels toured
for several years before opening in April 1846 in New York City, where a critic
complimented them for “chaste, refi ned, and harmonious” singing. Offering
family entertainment at cheap prices, Christy’s Minstrels took up residence at
New York’s Mechanic’s Hall for a seven-year run (1847–54).
Christy’s Minstrels came to be the most successful minstrel band in Amer-
ica. The company embraced a wide variety of solo and choral music, including
sentimental songs, glees, and arrangements of opera numbers. They came on
the scene at about the same time Stephen Foster was publishing his fi rst songs.
Christy must have recognized that Foster’s songs would appeal to the audiences
his company was trying to attract, and Foster knew there was no better way to
promote sales of his songs than to have them sung onstage by a famous companyK The minstrel troupe led
by Edwin P. Christy
(1815–1862) introduced
many of Stephen Foster's
songs not only in the United
States but also in England,
as this British lithograph
suggests.172028_06_132-161_r3_ko.indd 142 23/01/13 8:19 PM