Description
Minstrel Broadside. Boston Music Hall, Boston, Mass., I.C.C. The Inimitable Cacophonic Coons … Madagascar Minstrels Will Positively Appear In Music Hall, Wednesday and Thursday, February 13 and 14, 1889, In Their Catagmatic, Cataphractic, Cataclysmic, and Catachrestic Saltatorial Symphony. Printed by Nathan Sawyer & Son, Boston. 71.5 cm x 20.5 cm.
Blue ink on white paper. This copy has undergone a surface cleaning to remove superficial and ground-in dirt, a washing to reduce acidity and some discoloration, buffering with calcium hydroxide to deter future acid influx, sizing with gelatin to restore crispness and resilience to sheet and flattening to reduce planar distortions and creases, using humidity and pressing between blotters. Matted with archival mat. An extraordinary artifact of America’s long history of racial stereotyping, which confirms the promoters’ motives for these advertised events in Boston. No other copies of this broadside have been located.
The pejorative racial stereotypes expressed on this broadside do not represent the views, beliefs or opinions of the bookseller.
