Thomas D. Rice
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Thomas D. "Daddy" Rice (May 20 1808 – September 19 1860) was an American comedian, notable for his act in minstrel shows. He was born in New York City, where he would die aged fifty-two.
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[edit] Career
His act included the song and dance "Jump Jim Crow" which would later give its name to "Jim Crow" segregation laws in the 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 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 is centered on 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)
[edit] Notes
[edit] References
- 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 0-19-507832-2.
