ABSTRACT
From 1843 the blackface minstrel show dominated popular theatre and was enjoyed across the full spectrum of American society. This chapter provides an overview of how the minstrel show achieved that by effectively serving an abundance of white psychological demands and desires. The chapter details how antebellum minstrelsy supported the majority values and racism of the Jacksonian Democracy of its time and eased the tensions and conflicts that arose from those values. The chapter goes on to illuminate, however, how the minstrel show also had the capacity to challenge all that it apparently supported and offered that challenge safe public expression.
