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Thatcher, Primrose & West’s Minstrels There Are Several Good Minstrel Companies In The Country, But Thatcher, Primrose & West, Easily Lead The Procession!
Cincinnati: The Strobridge Lith. Co., [c.1881]. Chromolithograph, 38.75” x 29”. A brilliantly printed and characteristically offensive minstrel show poster, advertising Thatcher, Primrose & West’s conversion to white minstrelsy. George Primrose and William H. West performed with J. H. Haverly’s minstrel company prior to forming their own company in 1877. Under the influence of Sam Hague’s British Minstrels, they replaced black-face song and dance in 1881 with white minstrels dressed in European finery performing upper class entertainments. The poster offered here depicts four white Thatcher, Primrose & West minstrels winning a toboggan race, while their black-face—or for all intents and purposes black—competitors crash on the slope behind them. Text on the crashing toboggans reads “Tried and Found Wanting” and “Disaster.” One of the tumbling sledders remarks “I wish I’d made other arrangements.” While on one level the message is that black-face minstrelsy has seen better days, the image is inescapably racist, with its winning white guys trailed by supposedly inept African Americans. A vivid example of the way in which minstrel show advertising, with its large, often beautifully printed posters, fostered and reinforced racial stereotypes that its audience found perfectly acceptable and indeed agreeable. CONDITION: Good, minor losses at edges, a few short tears, some creasing.
Item #3554
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