Al Jolson
Videos
Al Jolson was an American singer, comedian, actor, and vaudevillian.
Jolson in 1925
Al Jolson (1920s)
Poster for The Jazz Singer, 1927
Poster for Hallelujah, I'm a Bum with reissue title
Blackface
Videos
Blackface is the practice of performers of any race or ethnicity, usually white people, using burned cork, shoe polish, or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people, e.g. African Ameri
Al Jolson
…style was "arguably the single most important factor in defining the modern musical." Jolson has been referred to by modern critics as "the king of blackface performers". Although best remembered today as the star of the first, major talking picture, The Jazz Singer (1927), he starred in a series of successful…
This reproduction of a 1900 William H. 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.
FLIT advertisement by Dr. Seuss depicting blackface-styled caricatures of Black people
The white American actor John McCullough as Othello, 1878
Carrie Swain in blackface as Topsy in Uncle Tom's Cabin.