The popularity of minstrel shows and the music from them would be easy to dismiss as another aspect of slavery and repression of blacks in the US of the nineteenth century. During these Victorian times, white performers and songwriters were forced into narrow emotional constraints in public plays and concerts. Often, they were rather lifeless imitations of "high art", ie Shakespeare, Moliere,etc. They were also often lacking in entertainment value. Minstrel shows offered these same artists and performers a venue for "loosening up", due in fact to the stereotypes prevalent of blacks as natural singers, dancers, and comedians. The idea that their lives were basic and uncomplicated to an almost cartoon level, also allowed for the enactment of simple stories that nearly reached the level of allegories or morality plays. That Stephen Foster wrote both "Old Black Joe", a classic minstrel tear-jerker, and "Jeannie with the Long Brown Hair", a classic pseudo-operatic favorite of the white stage, should not be surprising. Both achieved the intended emotional impact utilizing the two most popular genres of the time.

LEJ