ABSTRACT
The mixture of musical entertainments presented to Americans during their first century as a nation was as richly diversified as the people living within the country's ever-expanding borders. Immigrants and visitors to the United States brought many genres. At the same time, Americans began to develop new musical and theatrical traditions; as might be expected, these home-grown forms of entertainment generally reflected the attitudes and habits of the people who created them. For this reason, the storylines and depictions of the nineteenth-century American stage reveal now-uncomfortable strains of racism, sexism, and at times a distinct cultural divide between social classes. Charles Matthews, an English actor visiting the United States in 1822, made it his mission to learn all he could about the mannerisms and behavior of African Americans. For more than twenty years, the minstrel show was the province of white performers disguised in blackface.
