Beyond blackface : African Americans and the creation of American popular culture, 1890-1930

This collection of thirteen essays, edited by historian W. Fitzhugh Brundage, brings together original work from sixteen scholars in various disciplines, ranging from theater and literature to history and music, to address the complex roles of black performers, entrepreneurs, and consumers in American mass culture during the early twentieth century.



Moving beyond the familiar territory of blackface and minstrelsy, these essays present a fresh look at the history of African Americans and mass culture. With subjects ranging from representations of race in sheet music illustrations to African American interest in Haitian culture, Beyond Blackface recovers the history of forgotten or obscure cultural figures and shows how these historical actors played a role in the creation of American mass culture. The essays explore the predicament that blacks faced at a time when white supremacy crested and innovations in consumption, technology, and leisure made mass culture possible. Underscoring the importance and complexity of race in the emergence of mass culture, Beyond Blackface depicts popular culture as a crucial arena in which African Americans struggled to secure a foothold as masters of their own representation and architects of the nation's emerging consumer society.



The contributors are:

Davarian L. Baldwin, Trinity College

W. Fitzhugh Brundage, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Clare Corbould, University of Sydney

Susan Curtis, Purdue University

Stephanie Dunson, Williams College

Lewis A. Erenberg, Loyola University Chicago

Stephen Garton, University of Sydney

John M. Giggie, University of Alabama

Grace Elizabeth Hale, University of Virginia

Robert Jackson, University of Tulsa

David Krasner, Emerson College

Thomas Riis, University of Colorado at Boulder

Stephen Robertson, University of Sydney

John Stauffer, Harvard University

Graham White, University of Sydney

Shane White, University of Sydney

Black misrepresentation in nineteenth-century sheet music illustration / Stephanie Dunson -- Creating an image in Black : the power of abolition pictures / John Stauffer -- The real thing / David Krasner -- Black creativity and Black stereotype : rethinking twentieth-century popular music in America / Susan Curtis -- Crossing boundaries : Black musicians who defied musical genres / Thomas Riis -- Our newcomers to the city : the great migration and the making of modern mass culture / Davarian L. Baldwin -- Buying and selling with God : African American religion, race records, and the emerging culture of mass consumption in the South / John M. Giggie -- The secret life of Oscar Micheaux : race films, contested histories, and modern American culture / Robert Jackson -- Hear me talking to you : the blues and the romance of rebellion / Grace Elizabeth Hale -- At the feet of Dessalines : performing Hait's revolution during the new Negro renaissance / Clare Corbould -- The Black eagle of Harlem / Shane White ... [et al.] -- More than a prizefight : Joe Louis, Max Schmeling, and the transnational politics of boxing / Lewis A. Erenberg.