William M. "Billy" Whitlock (1813–1878) was an American

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 blackface

Blackface

Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...

 performer. He began his career in entertainment doing blackface banjo

Banjo

In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

 routines in circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

es and dime shows, and by 1843, he was well known in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

. He is best known for his role in forming the original minstrel

Minstrel show

The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....

 troupe, the Virginia Minstrels

Virginia Minstrels

The Virginia Minstrels or Virginia Serenaders was a group of 19th century American entertainers known for helping to invent the entertainment form known as the minstrel show...

.

Early career

Whitlock was born in New York City

New York City

New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...

 in 1813. He worked as a typesetter

Typesetting

Typesetting is the composition of text by means of types.Typesetting requires the prior process of designing a font and storing it in some manner...

 for a religious journal, then went to work for the New York Herald

New York Herald

The New York Herald was a large distribution newspaper based in New York City that existed between May 6, 1835, and 1924.-History:The first issue of the paper was published by James Gordon Bennett, Sr., on May 6, 1835. By 1845 it was the most popular and profitable daily newspaper in the UnitedStates...

. Whitlock claimed to have met America's pre-eminent banjo

Banjo

In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

ist, Joel Sweeney

Joel Sweeney

Joel Walker Sweeney , also known as Joe Sweeney, was a musician and early blackface minstrel performer. Born to a farming family in Buckingham County, Virginia, he claimed to have learned to play the banjo from local African-Americans and is the earliest documented white banjo player...

, in 1838 and to have taken some banjo lessons from him. He joined P. T. Barnum's

P. T. Barnum

Phineas Taylor Barnum was an American showman, businessman, scam artist and entertainer, remembered for promoting celebrated hoaxes and for founding the circus that became the Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus....

 circus in 1839, where he began his blackface act.

By 1840, Whitlock was performing circus

Circus

A circus is commonly a travelling company of performers that may include clowns, acrobats, trained animals, trapeze acts, musicians, hoopers, tightrope walkers, jugglers, unicyclists and other stunt-oriented artists...

es, museum

Museum

A museum is an institution that cares for a collection of artifacts and other objects of scientific, artistic, cultural, or historical importance and makes them available for public viewing through exhibits that may be permanent or temporary. Most large museums are located in major cities...

s, and variety show

Variety show

A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...

s and had taken the epithet "King of Banjo players, and the Emperor of Extravaganza Singers". He paired with John Diamond for a time, playing banjo

Banjo

In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...

 and singing while Diamond danced. Frank Lynch eventually replaced Diamond, though he took "Frank Diamond" as his stage name

Stage name

A stage name, also called a showbiz name or screen name, is a pseudonym used by performers and entertainers such as actors, wrestlers, comedians, and musicians.-Motivation to use a stage name:...

. Whitlock also partnered with Dan Gardner, who would dress in drag

Drag (clothing)

Drag is used for any clothing carrying symbolic significance but usually referring to the clothing associated with one gender role when worn by a person of another gender. The origin of the term "drag" is unknown, but it may have originated in Polari, a gay street argot in England in the early...

 as Whitlock's character "Sambo Squash" made romantic overtures.

This playbill, written in the stereotyped African American Vernacular English

African American Vernacular English

African American Vernacular English —also called African American English; less precisely Black English, Black Vernacular, Black English Vernacular , or Black Vernacular English —is an African American variety of American English...

 that characterized blackface entertainment, describes Whitlock's basic act:

Now dat Massa Whitlock plays so partic'lar combustious, and will sing dat 'fecting song of Jinny git your Hoe Cake done! and dat first rate ballad of Jim Along Josey! defying all de niggers in de world to charm de people after dat same manner. Dis very partic'lar nigga will jump, dance, and knock his heels in a way dat Mademoiselle Fanny Elssler

Fanny Elssler

Fanny Elssler - 27 November 1884), born Franziska Elßler, was an Austrian ballerina of the 'Romantic Period'.- Life :Daughter of Johann Florian Elssler, a second generation employee of Prince Esterhazy in Eisenstadt. Both Johann and his brother Josef were employed as copyists to the Prince's...

 neber did, neber can and neber will do.

Many years later, Whitlock claimed that his Negro impersonations were based on reality. He would "quietly steal off to some negro hut to hear the darkeys sing and see them dance, taking with him a jug of whiskey to make them all the merrier."

Virginia Minstrels

In early 1843, Whitlock became one of the founding members of the Virginia Minstrels

Virginia Minstrels

The Virginia Minstrels or Virginia Serenaders was a group of 19th century American entertainers known for helping to invent the entertainment form known as the minstrel show...

. Whitlock's version of the group's founding holds that Whitlock asked fiddler Dan Emmett

Dan Emmett

Daniel Decatur "Dan" Emmett was an American songwriter and entertainer, founder of the first troupe of the blackface minstrel tradition.-Biography:...

 to practice with him. They did so on a few occasions, but during one such session, Frank Brower

Frank Brower

Francis "Frank" Marion Brower was an American blackface performer active in the mid-19th century. Brower began performing blackface song-and-dance acts in circuses and variety shows when he was 13. He eventually introduced the bones to his act, helping to popularize it as a blackface instrument...

 dropped by unannounced and decided to join in on bones

Bones (instrument)

The bones are a musical instrument which, at the simplest, consists of a pair of animal bones, or pieces of wood or a similar material. Sections of large rib bones and lower leg bones are the most commonly used true bones, although wooden sticks shaped like the earlier true bones are now more...

. Richard Pelham

Richard Pelham

Richard Ward "Dick" Pelham , born Richard Ward Pell, was an American blackface performer. He was born in New York City....

 soon followed with his tambourine

Tambourine

The tambourine or marine is a musical instrument of the percussion family consisting of a frame, often of wood or plastic, with pairs of small metal jingles, called "zils". Classically the term tambourine denotes an instrument with a drumhead, though some variants may not have a head at all....

.

The Virginia Minstrels put on a full minstrel show

Minstrel show

The minstrel show, or minstrelsy, was an American entertainment consisting of comic skits, variety acts, dancing, and music, performed by white people in blackface or, especially after the Civil War, black people in blackface....

 at the New York Bowery Amphitheatre

Bowery Amphitheatre

The Bowery Amphitheatre was a building in the Bowery neighborhood of New York City. It was located at 37 and 39 Bowery, across the street from the Bowery Theatre. Under a number of different names and managers, the structure served as a circus, menagerie, and theatre...

 on 6 February 1843. Whitlock was the most famous of the foursome, but soon all four names became well known as they toured New York and Boston. Whitlock's banjo was long-necked and four-stringed, though a fifth was added by 1844. He played the instrument by striking the strings with his fingernail. Whitlock also did a "Locomotive Lecture", a predecessor to the stump speech

Stump speech (minstrelsy)

The stump speech was a comic monologue from blackface minstrelsy...

, wherein he feigned a complete lack of knowledge about steam engines and the railroad. Whitlock wrote some music, as well; his "Miss Lucy Long

Miss Lucy Long

"Miss Lucy Long", also known as "Lucy Long" and other variants, is an American song that was popularized in the blackface minstrel show. A comic banjo tune, the lyrics, written in exaggerated Black Vernacular English, tell of the courtship or marriage of the male singer and the title character...

" became a hit for both the Virginia Minstrels and Christy's Minstrels

Christy's Minstrels

Christy's Minstrels, sometimes referred to as the Christy Minstrels, were a blackface group formed by Edwin Pearce Christy, a well-known ballad singer, in 1843, in Buffalo, New York. They were instrumental in the solidification of the minstrel show into a fixed three-act form...

.

Whitlock and the troupe left for Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

, England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, on 21 April. They performed several minstrel shows in the British Isles, but they broke up after a performance on 14 July 1843, possibly due to low profits. Whitlock returned to New York City with the group's manager, George Wooldridge.

Later career

Back in America, Whitlock returned to his circus blackface act. For a time, he joined T. G. Booth, Cool White, and Barney Williams

Barney Williams

Barney Guillermo Williams is a Canadian rower. He was educated at Upper Canada College, the University of Victoria and then at Jesus College, University of Oxford where he was President of the Oxford University Boat Club.He won a gold medal at the 2003 world championships in Milan, Italy and a...

 as a member of the Kentucky Minstrels

Kentucky Minstrels

The Kentucky Minstrels were a team formed under the leadership of Duncan Bruce to study a scheme during World War II to cover the River Thames with soot in order to conceal it from German Bombers....

.

On 28 July 1845, Whitlock joined Emmett, Jerry Bryant

Bryant's Minstrels

Bryant's Minstrels was a blackface minstrel troupe that performed in the mid-19th century, primarily in New York City. The troupe was led by the O'Neill brothers from upstate New York, who took the stage name Bryant....

, Dan Gardner, and Charles White to form the Operatic Brothers and Sisters. The group put on a week of outdoor performances in Hoboken, New Jersey

Hoboken, New Jersey

Hoboken is a city in Hudson County, New Jersey, United States. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population was 50,005. The city is part of the New York metropolitan area and contains Hoboken Terminal, a major transportation hub for the region...

. On 23 October, he performed at a benefit

Benefit concert

A benefit concert or charity concert is a concert, show or gala featuring musicians, comedians, or other performers that is held for a charitable purpose, often directed at a specific and immediate humanitarian crisis. Such events raise both funds and public awareness to address the cause at...

along with Emmett, Gardner, and other prominent blackface entertainers. His last public blackface performance was at a circus in 1855.