Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin spread throughout the nation in 1852.Uncle Tom’s Cabin depicted the stories of two slaves, Tom and Eliza. The two separate plot lines each focused on different struggles slaves faced on the Shelby plantation in Kentucky. Minstrel groups wasted no time in jumping on the opportunity to act out the stories, fashioning them to their own personal interpretations (1). Richard Crawford described Uncle Tom's Cabin as a work that exposed “stark distinctions between the forces of good and evil (2).” According to novelist Henry James,Uncle Tom’s Cabin’s “subject, tone, and characters allowed it to be adapted easily to almost any circumstances.”
Thus, many minstrel groups wrote what came to be known as “Tom shows.” Most shows in the 1850s followed the established trend of highlighting a light-hearted plantation life. For example, Christy’s Minstrels wrote “Life Among the Happy.” The sketch practically ignored Stowe’s theme of the horrors of slavery and made use of “dancing, singing, and high spirits (3).” Audience members of the North and South held starkly different opinions on sketches such as Christy's. An antislavery newspaper, the National Era, wrote a negative reflection on the plays’ joking manner. Contrarily, a New Orleans native claimed that he had been “convulsed with laughter (4).” Thus, Tom shows managed to “deepen sectional disorder” between attitudes towards slavery in the North and South (5). An example such as Uncle Tom’s Cabin was added to the long list of reasons the South seceded from the Union and the broken nation went to war against each other in 1865. |
1) Taylor, Yuval, and Jake Austen. Darkest America: Black Minstrelsy from Slavery to Hip-hop. New York: W.W. Norton & Co, 2012.
2, 3) Crawford, Richard. "Blacks, Whites, and the Minstrel Stage." America's Musical Life: A History, 219. New York: Norton, 2001.
4) Meer, Sarah. "Blackface in Uncle Tom's Cabin." Uncle Tom Mania: Slavery, Minstrelsy, and Transatlantic Culture in the 1850s. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005.
5) Lott, Eric. "Uncle Tomitudes." Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.
2, 3) Crawford, Richard. "Blacks, Whites, and the Minstrel Stage." America's Musical Life: A History, 219. New York: Norton, 2001.
4) Meer, Sarah. "Blackface in Uncle Tom's Cabin." Uncle Tom Mania: Slavery, Minstrelsy, and Transatlantic Culture in the 1850s. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005.
5) Lott, Eric. "Uncle Tomitudes." Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York: Oxford University Press, 1993.