The Creolization of American Culture: William Sidney Mount and the Roots of Blackface Minstrelsy by Christopher J. Smith

Abstract

664 ■ NEW YORK HISTORY The Creolization of American Culture: William Sidney Mount and the Roots of Blackface Minstrelsy. By Christopher J. Smith, Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press, 2013, 352 pages, $45.00 Cloth. Reviewed by T.J. Vaughan, Aurora University In contemporary society the mere subject of blackface frequently provokes abhorrent disgust and thoughts of racism. However, as British novelist L.P. Hartley once wrote “[t]he past is a foreign country: they do things differently there.” In this important new work, Christopher J. Smith reminds us that what is true today was not always the case. Smith examines the roots of what became known as blackface minstrelsy, and he positions its origins as a cultural exchange that involved musical styles and performers from various racial and ethnic groups coalescing into what became the first example of a distinctly American popular music. Smith describes this musical fusion as “creolization.” He develops and supports his thesis primarily through the work of antebellum New York painter and musician William Sidney Mount, who was a contemporary observer and recorder of this musical phenomenon. Smith argues that minstrelsy did not spontaneously arrive in 1843 with the emergence of the Virginia Minstrels, as other historians have often asserted. Rather, the Virginia Minstrels transferred this emerging popular music from New York City’s streets to its working class theaters. In this process, performers shifted from being primarily multiracial and multicultural to whites masquerading as black. Although racial conflict obviously existed at the time, African American and white working class musicians came together to play and also construct this new popular music. However, the presence of these performers in theaters that catered to middle and upper class whites would have been too socially threatening, so white performers donned black make-up and attempted to duplicate the music they had heard. Smith shows that the first blackface performers were familiar with the musical genre and its musicians and respected their work. Smith’s study, however, focuses on the era prior to the rise of the Virginia Minstrels as he traces the roots of this music. Here, he finds areas in which diverse groups of performers intersected. This was often on the Book Reviews 665 docks where working class white immigrants brought their Celtic musical traditions and African American workers brought their African and Caribbean influenced styles. Through the shared experience of music, something unique developed that was influenced by existing styles, but was new. This music began to spread via maritime and riverine routes as performers , often dock workers, day laborers and sailors, moved to where they could find work. Additionally, in New York this music was performed on the streets and at festivals such as Pinkster and Negro ‘Lection Day where the coming together of black and white musicians was considered less of a threat to existing social order. William Sidney Mount was from an artistic family and moved between the Lower East Side and Long Island. Although he made his living primarily as a portrait artist, his most important works often prominently feature African American musicians. Mount was musically inclined, playing the flute and fiddle. Making extensive use of Mount’s papers and sketches, as well as his paintings, Smith reveals a world in which musicians, black and white, creatively inspired each other. By using Mount’s visual iconography as the basis for much of his argument , Smith builds upon existing minstrelsy scholarship. These works include sketches that were always drawn from life and also a series of Mount’s paintings that depict musicians posing or performing. Based upon these images, Smith argues that these works provide visual evidence of the creolization of merged musical forms and influences. According to Smith, Mount depicts white performers using techniques typically associated with black players. Based on the ethnochoreographic evidence of musicians and dancers in Mount’s drawings and paintings, Smith takes what might at first be considered to be tenuous support and makes a compelling and convincing argument. Most of Mount’s work was spent painting from real life in and around his home in Stony Brook, New York. He was not trained in Europe nor did his work reflect a European style. His style is generally...