Thomas D. Rice
Thomas Dartmouth (T.D.) "Daddy" Rice (May, 1808 - September 16, 1860), was a comedian and the creator of the blackface form of comedy of the 19th century and early 20th century.
His act included the song and dance "Jump Jim Crow" which would be later give its name to "Jim Crow" segregation laws in the southern United States. in the 1850s, he played the title role in one of the more prominent (and one of the least abolitionist) "Tom shows", loosely based on Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. (Lott, 1993, 211)
Rice's brand of entertainment would later be considered a form of racism, although it also opened the door for black performers.
Rice's greatest prominence came in the 1830s, before the rise of full-blown blackface minstrel shows, when blackface performances were typically part of a variety show or as an entr'acte in another play. Rice's playlet Oh Hush! or The Virginny Cupids was the most popular of the time. It centered around a song "Coal Black Rose", which predated the playlet. Rice played Cuff, boss of the bootblacks, and he wins the girl, Rose, away from the black dandy Sambo Johnson, a former bootblack who made money by winning a lottery. (Lott, 1993, 133)
References
- http://www.geocities.com/Heartland/Estates/1390/oldnews.htm
- http://www.geometry.net/nobel/passy_frederic_page_no_2.php
- Lott, Eric. Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993. ISBN 0195078322.