Luke Schoolcraft | |
|---|---|
 Photo by William McKenzie Morrison | |
| Background information | |
| Born | 1847 |
| Origin | New Orleans, Louisiana |
| Died | March 10, 1893 |
| Genres | Minstrel show |
| Years active | 1865–1893 |
Luke Schoolcraft (November 13, 1847 - March 10, 1893) was an American minstrel music composer and performer. He appeared in numerous minstrel shows throughout the North after the American Civil War.
Schoolcraft was born in New Orleans, Louisiana, into a family of actors and artists. [1] His father, Henry R. Schoolcraft* was an actor who appeared in shows at Crisp's Gaiety Theater and who despite his death before 1860, saw to it that his son Luke and his daughters Jane and Alfreda (who would be famous in her own right as Alfreda Chippendale) all pursued careers in theater. Luke Schoolcraft's first stage performance was in 1851 in Rolla, the Richard Brinsley Sheridan adaptation of August von Kotzebue's Pizarro . [2]
Minstrelsy was America's first original contribution to the theater arts. [3] It was popular from just before the American Civil War to the end of the 19th century. Today minstrelsy and its attendant blackface is viewed as racist and anachronistic, however it was the preeminent entertainment in the United States during the life of Luke Schoolcraft, and he was one of the most well-known and successful performers. [2]
By his twenties, Schoolcraft was touring the nation and performing in variety shows. Negroes were not the only ethnic group who were lampooned in minstrel shows; indeed Schoolcraft began performing Dutch songs until several hits as a blackface performer landed him in the minstrel ranks. [4] In 1870 he and his first wife Belle were living in St. Louis, Missouri, among a troupe of actors that included George H. Coes. Schoolcraft also had an early association with Billy Emerson [2] and Schoolcraft settled in Terre Haute, Indiana, after 1870. He helped form a music academy in a former church that was popularly known as "Luke Schoolcraft's Academy of Music." [2] It was in Terre Haute that Schoolcraft met and wed his second wife, Elizabeth Clark on January 7, 1871.
In 1872, Schoolcraft moved to New York City and made a spectacular debut at Richard M. Hooley's Opera House in Brooklyn on March 25, 1872. Newspapers there declared that he was "an immediate hit." [2] During this period, one of Schoolcraft's original songs, Oh! Dat Watermelon became popular. Today, this song is among the best-known minstrel pieces of that era.
Schoolcraft joined with his old friend George H. Coes in 1874 and they formed "one of the most famous minstrel tandems in history." [2] Schoolcraft & Coes appeared with a number of leading companies including Emerson's Megatherian Minstrels and Barlow, Wilson, Primrose & West. By 1880, the two settled with their families in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and continued to tour throughout the country performing their minstrel act in a variety of shows and venues.
When Coes was unable to continue his career due to poor health in 1889, the partnership dissolved. Schoolcraft continued to perform solo as part of a number of shows including Lew Dockstader's popular minstrel troupe. In 1892, Schoolcraft was a star in Russell's Comedians, a troupe of specialty artists. It was with this company that he performed his final show at the Walnut Street Theater in Cincinnati, Ohio. He died on March 10, 1893, in his room at the Hotel Stratford. His body was transported to Boston, his funeral was held at the Church of the Advent and he was buried in Cedar Grove Cemetery in Dorchester, Massachusetts. [5]
Luke Schoolcraft produced a number of songs, but his most well-known pieces were:
Female impersonation is a type of theatrical performance where a man dresses in women's clothing for the sole purpose of entertaining an audience. While the term female impersonator is sometimes used interchangeably with drag queen, they are not the same. Drag as an art form is associated with queer identity whereas female impersonation may come from a wide a range of gender identity paradigms, including heteronormativity. Additionally, many drag artists view drag as a lived form of self-expression or creativity, and perceive drag as something that is not limited to the stage or to performance. In contrast, female impersonation is specifically limited to performance and may or may not involve an LGBTQI point of view.
Blackface is the practice of performers using burnt cork, shoe polish, or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment. Scholarship on the origins or definition of blackface vary with some taking a global perspective that includes European culture and Western colonialism. Scholars with this wider view may date the practice of blackface to as early as Medieval Europe's mystery plays when bitumen and coal were used to darken the skin of white performers portraying demons, devils, and damned souls. Still others date the practice to English Renaissance theatre, in works such as William Shakespeare's Othello.
The minstrel show, also called minstrelsy, was an American form of theater developed in the early 19th century. The shows were performed by mostly white actors wearing blackface makeup for the purpose of comically portraying racial stereotypes of African Americans. There were also some African-American performers and black-only minstrel groups that formed and toured. Minstrel shows stereotyped blacks as dimwitted, lazy, buffoonish, cowardly, superstitious, and happy-go-lucky. Each show consisted of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music performances that depicted people specifically of African descent.
The Virginia Minstrels or Virginia Serenaders was a group of 19th-century American entertainers who helped invent the entertainment form known as the minstrel show. Led by Dan Emmett, the original lineup consisted of Emmett, Billy Whitlock, Dick Pelham, and Frank Brower.
Christy's Minstrels, sometimes referred to as the Christy Minstrels, were a blackface group formed by Edwin Pearce Christy, a well-known ballad singer, in 1843, in Buffalo, New York. They were instrumental in the solidification of the minstrel show into a fixed three-act form. The troupe also invented or popularized "the line", the structured grouping that constituted the first act of the standardized three-act minstrel show, with the interlocutor in the middle and "Mr. Tambo" and "Mr. Bones" on the ends.
The Ethiopian Serenaders was an American blackface minstrel troupe successful in the 1840s and 1850s. Through various line-ups they were managed and directed by James A. Dumbolton (c.1808–?), and are sometimes mentioned as the Boston Minstrels, Dumbolton Company or Dumbolton's Serenaders.
Christopher Haverly (1837–1901), better known as J. H. Haverly or John H. "Jack" Haverly, was an American theatre manager and promoter of blackface minstrel shows. During the 1870s and 1880s, he created an entertainment empire centered on his minstrel troupes, particularly Haverly's United Mastodon Minstrels and Haverly's Colored Minstrels. Under his guidance, these troupes grew to impressive sizes and featured elaborate sets and costumes. They toured widely, enlarging minstrelsy's audience to encompass the entire United States as well as England. Haverly's methods sparked a revolution in minstrelsy as other troupes scrambled to compete. As the costs of minstrelsy increased, many troupes went out of business.
Sam Lucas was an American actor, comedian, singer and songwriter. His birth year has also been reported as 1839, 1841, 1848 and 1850.
Billy Kersands was an African-American comedian and dancer. He was the most popular black comedian of his day, best known for his work in blackface minstrelsy. In addition to his skillful acrobatics, dancing, singing, and instrument playing, Kersands was renowned for his comic routines involving his large mouth, which he could contort comically or fill with objects such as billiard balls or saucers. His stage persona was that of the dim-witted black man of the type that had been popularized in white minstrel shows. Modern commentators such as Mel Watkins cite him as one of the earliest black entertainers to have faced the dilemma of striking a balance between social satire and the reinforcement of negative stereotypes.
Charles Callender was the owner of blackface minstrel troupes that featured African American performers. Although a tavern owner by trade, he entered show business in 1872 when he purchased Sam Hague's Slave Troupe of Georgia Minstrels.
Sam Hague was a British blackface minstrel dancer and troupe owner. He was a pioneering white owner of a minstrel troupe composed of black members, and the success he saw with this troupe inspired many other white minstrel managers to tour with black companies.
Primrose and West was an American blackface song-and-dance team made up of partners George Primrose and William H. "Billy" West. They later went into the business of minstrel troupe ownership with a refined, high-class approach that signaled the final stage in the development of minstrelsy as a distinct form of entertainment.
Bryant's Minstrels was a blackface minstrel troupe that performed in the mid-19th century, primarily in New York City. The troupe was led by the O'Neill brothers from upstate New York, who took the stage name Bryant.
"Clare de Kitchen" is an American song from the blackface minstrel tradition. It dates to 1832, when blackface performers such as George Nichols, Thomas D. Rice, and George Washington Dixon began to sing it. These performers and American writers such as T. Allston Brown traced the song's origins to black riverboatmen. "Clare de Kitchen" became very popular, and performers sometimes sang the lyrics of "Blue Tail Fly" to its tune.
William M. Whitlock was an American blackface performer. He began his career in entertainment doing blackface banjo routines in circuses and dime shows, and by 1843 he was well known in New York City. He is best known for his role in forming the original minstrel show troupe, the Virginia Minstrels.
"Miss Lucy Long", also known as "Lucy Long" as well as by other variants, is an American song that was popularized in the blackface minstrel show.
Francis Marion Brower was an American blackface performer active in the mid-19th century. Brower began performing blackface song-and-dance acts in circuses and variety shows when he was 13. He eventually introduced the bones to his act, helping to popularize it as a blackface instrument. Brower teamed with various other performers, forming his longest association with banjoist Dan Emmett beginning in 1841. Brower earned a reputation as a gifted dancer. In 1842, Brower and Emmett moved to New York City. They were out of work by January 1843, when they teamed up with Billy Whitlock and Richard Pelham to form the Virginia Minstrels. The group was the first to perform a full minstrel show as a complete evening's entertainment. Brower pioneered the role of the endman.
George H. Coes was an American minstrel music performer. He appeared in numerous minstrel shows in California and throughout the Northeastern United States.
George Walker and Bert Williams were two of the most renowned figures of the minstrel era. However the two did not start their careers together. Walker was born in 1873 in Lawrence, Kansas. His onstage career began at an early age as he toured in black minstrel shows as a child. George Walker became a better known stage performer as he toured the country with a traveling group of minstrels. George Walker was a "dandy", a performer notorious for performing without makeup due to his dark skin. Most vaudeville actors were white at this time and often wore blackface. As Walker and his group traveled the country, Bert Williams was touring with his group, named Martin and Selig's Mastodon Minstrels. While performing with the Minstrels, African American song-and-dance man George Walker and Bert Williams met in San Francisco in 1893. George Walker married Ada Overton in 1899. Ada Overton Walker was known as one of the first professional African American choreographers. Prior to starring in performances with Walker and Williams, Overton wowed audiences across the country for her 1900 musical performance in the show Son of Ham. After falling ill during the tour of Bandana Land in 1909, George Walker returned to Lawrence, Kansas where he died on January 8, 1911. He was 38.
James Unsworth was an English blackface comedian, banjo player and songwriter, who performed in Britain, Canada and the United States.
