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Thomas Dartmouth Rice (May 20, 1808 – September 19, 1860) was an American performer and playwright who performed in blackface and used African American vernacular speech, song and dance to become one of the most popular minstrel show entertainers of his time. He is considered the "father of American minstrelsy".
4 kwi 2024 · Thomas Dartmouth Rice was an American actor regarded as the father of the minstrel show. Rice was an itinerant actor until his song and dance Jump Jim Crow, first presented in Louisville in 1828, caught the public fancy and made him one of the most popular specialty performers of his day.
Abstract. This chapter reads the history of blackface minstrelsy, particularly T. D. Rice's successful farce, The Virginia Mummy (1837), as a part of the history of frontier performance. Rice's performance explodes the politics of Paulding's melodrama of wonder in The Lion of the West.
Throughout the 1830s and '40s, the white entertainer Thomas Dartmouth Rice (1808-1860) performed a popular song-and-dance act supposedly modeled after a slave. He named the character Jim Crow. Rice darkened his face, acted like a buffoon, and spoke with an exaggerated and distorted imitation of African American Vernacular English.
The actual origin of the Jim Crow character has been lost to legend. Rice, as identified with the character the most, used African American vernacular speech, song, and dance to become one of the most popular minstrels show entertainers of his time.
The Jim Crow persona is a theater character developed by entertainer Thomas D. Rice (1808–1860) and popularized through his minstrel shows. The character is a stereotypical depiction of African-Americans and of their culture.
About About. FAQ. Mission & Values. Our History. Staff. Why I Collect Racist Objects. More About the Museum. News. Donate. Thomas Rice. The name Jim Crow is often used to describe the segregation laws, rules, and customs which arose after Reconstruction ended in 1877 and continued until the mid-1960s.
