Blackface
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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
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.
Vaudeville
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Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment which became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1870s until the early 1930s.
A promotional poster for the Sandow Trocadero Vaudevilles (1894), showing dancers, clowns, trapeze artists, costumed dogs, singers and costumed actors
This 1913 how-to booklet for would-be vaudevillians was recently republished.
Marie Dressler in "Tillie the Scrub Lady"
Trixie Friganza Hayes