Tom Shows
Encyclopedia
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
and musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
s based on the 1852 novel
Novel
A novel is a book of long narrative in literary prose. The genre has historical roots both in the fields of the medieval and early modern romance and in the tradition of the novella. The latter supplied the present generic term in the late 18th century....
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin
Uncle Tom's Cabin; or, Life Among the Lowly is an anti-slavery novel by American author Harriet Beecher Stowe. Published in 1852, the novel "helped lay the groundwork for the Civil War", according to Will Kaufman....
by Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe
Harriet Beecher Stowe was an American abolitionist and author. Her novel Uncle Tom's Cabin was a depiction of life for African-Americans under slavery; it reached millions as a novel and play, and became influential in the United States and United Kingdom...
. The novel depicts the harsh reality of slavery
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
. Due to the weak copyright laws at the time, a number of plays based on the novel were staged.
Even though Uncle Tom's Cabin was the best-selling novel of the 19th century, far more Americans of that time saw the story in a stage play
Play (theatre)
A play is a form of literature written by a playwright, usually consisting of scripted dialogue between characters, intended for theatrical performance rather than just reading. There are rare dramatists, notably George Bernard Shaw, who have had little preference whether their plays were performed...
or musical
Musical theatre
Musical theatre is a form of theatre combining songs, spoken dialogue, acting, and dance. The emotional content of the piece – humor, pathos, love, anger – as well as the story itself, is communicated through the words, music, movement and technical aspects of the entertainment as an...
than read the book. Some of these shows were essentially minstrel shows, which utilized caricatures and stereotype
Stereotype
A stereotype is a popular belief about specific social groups or types of individuals. The concepts of "stereotype" and "prejudice" are often confused with many other different meanings...
s of black people. "Tom shows" were popular in the United States from the 1850s through the early 1900s.
The shows
Given the lax copyright laws of the time, stage plays based on Uncle Tom's Cabin—"Tom shows"—began to appear while the story itself was still being serialized. These plays varied tremendously in their politics—some faithfully reflected Stowe's sentimentalized antislavery politics, while others were more moderate, or even pro-slavery. A number of the productions also featured songs by Stephen FosterStephen Foster
Stephen Collins Foster , known as the "father of American music", was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century...
, including "My Old Kentucky Home
My Old Kentucky Home
"My Old Kentucky Home" is a minstrel song by Stephen Foster , probably composed in 1852. It was published as "My Old Kentucky Home, Good Night" in January 1853 by Firth, Pond, & Co. of New York...
," "Old Folks at Home
Old Folks at Home
"Old Folks at Home" is a minstrel song written by Stephen Foster in 1851. It was intended to be performed by the New York blackface troupe Christy's Minstrels. E. P. Christy, the troupe's leader, appears on early printings of the sheet music as the song's creator...
," and "Massa's in the Cold Ground."
Stowe herself never authorized dramatization of her work, because of her puritan
Puritan
The Puritans were a significant grouping of English Protestants in the 16th and 17th centuries. Puritanism in this sense was founded by some Marian exiles from the clergy shortly after the accession of Elizabeth I of England in 1558, as an activist movement within the Church of England...
ical distrust of drama (although she did eventually go to see George Aiken
George Aiken (playwright)
George L. Aiken was a nineteenth century American playwright and actor who is best known for writing the most popular of the numerous stage adaptations of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin....
's version, and, according to Francis Underwood, was "delighted" by Caroline Howard's portrayal of Topsy). Asa Hutchinson of the Hutchinson Family Singers
Hutchinson Family Singers
The Hutchinson Family Singers were a 19th-century American family singing group who became the most popular American entertainers of the 1840s. The group sang in four-part harmony a repertoire of political, social, comic, sentimental and dramatic works, and are considered by many to be the first...
, whose antislavery politics closely matched those of Stowe tried and failed to get her permission to stage an official version; her refusal left the field clear for any number of adaptations, some launched for (various) political reasons and others as simply commercial theatrical ventures.
Eric Lott, in his book Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class, estimates that at least three million people saw these plays, as many as the novel's worldwide sales. Some of these shows were essentially minstrel shows loosely based on the novel and their grossly exaggerated caricatures of black people further perpetuated some of the stereotypes that Stowe used.
Productions
Melodrama
The term melodrama refers to a dramatic work that exaggerates plot and characters in order to appeal to the emotions. It may also refer to the genre which includes such works, or to language, behavior, or events which resemble them...
and 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...
minstrelsy
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....
.
The first serious attempt at anything like a faithful stage adaptation was a one-hour play by C.W. Taylor at Purdy's National Theater
Chatham Theatre
The Chatham Theatre or Chatham Street Theatre was a playhouse on the east side of Chatham Street in New York City. It was located between Roosevelt and James streets, a few blocks south of the Bowery. At its opening in 1839, the Chatham was a neighborhood establishment, which featured big-name...
(New York City); it ran for about ten performances in August–September 1852 sharing a bill with a blackface burlesque featuring T.D. Rice. Rice, famous in the 1830s for his comic and clearly racist
Racism
Racism is the belief that inherent different traits in human racial groups justify discrimination. In the modern English language, the term "racism" is used predominantly as a pejorative epithet. It is applied especially to the practice or advocacy of racial discrimination of a pernicious nature...
blackface character Jim Crow
Jim Crow laws
The Jim Crow laws were state and local laws in the United States enacted between 1876 and 1965. They mandated de jure racial segregation in all public facilities, with a supposedly "separate but equal" status for black Americans...
, later became the most celebrated actor to play the title role of Tom; when Rice opened in H.E. Stevens play of Uncle Tom's Cabin in January 1854 at New York's Bowery Theatre
Bowery Theatre
The Bowery Theatre was a playhouse in the Bowery neighborhood of New York City. Although it was founded by rich families to compete with the upscale Park Theatre, the Bowery saw its most successful period under the populist, pro-American management of Thomas Hamblin in the 1830s and 1840s...
, the Spirit of the Times
Spirit of the Times
The Spirit of the Times: A Chronicle of the Turf, Agriculture, Field Sports, Literature and the Stage was an American weekly newspaper published in New York City. The paper aimed for an upper-class readership made up largely of sportsmen. The Spirit also included humorous material, much of it based...
The best-known "Tom Shows" were those of George Aiken
George Aiken (playwright)
George L. Aiken was a nineteenth century American playwright and actor who is best known for writing the most popular of the numerous stage adaptations of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin....
and H.J. Conway.
Aiken's original Uncle Tom's Cabin focused almost entirely on Little Eva (played by child star Cordelia Howard); a sequel, The Death of Uncle Tom, or the Religion of the Lonely told Tom's own story. The two were ultimately combined in an unprecedented evening-long six-act play. According to Lott, it is generally faithful to Stowe's novel, although it plays down the trickster characters of Sam and Andy and variously adds or expands the roles of some farcical white characters instead. It also focuses heavily on George Harris; the New York Times reported that his defiant speech received "great cheers" from an audience of Bowery b'hoys and g'hals
B'hoy and g'hal
B'hoy and g'hal were the prevailing slang words used to describe the young men and women of the rough-and-tumble working class culture of Lower Manhattan in the late 1840s and into the period of the American Civil War...
. Even this most sympathetic of "Tom shows" clearly borrowed heavily from minstrelsy: not only were the slave roles all played by white actors in blackface, but Stephen Foster
Stephen Foster
Stephen Collins Foster , known as the "father of American music", was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century...
's "Old Folks at Home
Old Folks at Home
"Old Folks at Home" is a minstrel song written by Stephen Foster in 1851. It was intended to be performed by the New York blackface troupe Christy's Minstrels. E. P. Christy, the troupe's leader, appears on early printings of the sheet music as the song's creator...
" was played in the scene where Tom is sold down the river. After a long and successful run beginning November 15, 1852 in Troy, New York
Troy, New York
Troy is a city in the US State of New York and the seat of Rensselaer County. Troy is located on the western edge of Rensselaer County and on the eastern bank of the Hudson River. Troy has close ties to the nearby cities of Albany and Schenectady, forming a region popularly called the Capital...
, the play opened in New York City July 18, 1853, where its success was even greater.
Conway's production opened in Boston
Boston
Boston is the capital of and largest city in Massachusetts, and is one of the oldest cities in the United States. The largest city in New England, Boston is regarded as the unofficial "Capital of New England" for its economic and cultural impact on the entire New England region. The city proper had...
the same day Aiken's opened in Troy; P.T. Barnum brought it to his American Museum
Barnum's American Museum
Barnum's American Museum was located at the corner of Broadway and Ann Street in New York City, USA, from 1841 to 1865. The museum was owned by famous showman P.T. Barnum and his partner and original owner, John Scudder. Prior to their partnership, the museum was known as Scudder's American...
in New York November 7, 1853. Its politics were much more moderate. Sam and Andy become, in Lott's words, "buffoons". Criticism of slavery was placed largely in the mouth of a newly introduced Yankee
Yankee
The term Yankee has several interrelated and often pejorative meanings, usually referring to people originating in the northeastern United States, or still more narrowly New England, where application of the term is largely restricted to descendants of the English settlers of the region.The...
character, a reporter named Penetrate Partyside. St. Clare's role was expanded, and turned into more of a pro-slavery advocate, articulating the politics of a John C. Calhoun
John C. Calhoun
John Caldwell Calhoun was a leading politician and political theorist from South Carolina during the first half of the 19th century. Calhoun eloquently spoke out on every issue of his day, but often changed positions. Calhoun began his political career as a nationalist, modernizer, and proponent...
. Legree rigs the auction that gets him ownership of Tom (as against Stowe's and Aiken's portrayal of oppression as the normal mode of slavery, not an abuse of the system by a cheater). Beyond this, Conway gave his play a happy ending, with Tom and various other slaves freed.
Showmen felt that Stowe's novel had a flaw in that there was no clearly defined comic character, so there was no role for a comedian, and consequently little relief from the tragedy. Eventually it was found that the minor character of Marks the Lawyer could be played as a broad caricature for laughs, dressing him in foppish clothes, often equipped with a dainty umbrella. Some productions even had him make an entrance mounted astride a large pig.
Diluting the message of Stowe's book
"Tom shows" were so popular that there were even pro-slavery versions. Among the most popular was Uncle Tom's Cabin as It Is: The Southern Uncle Tom, produced in 1852 at the Baltimore Museum. Lott mentions numerous "offshoots, parodies, thefts, and rebuttals" including a full-scale play by Christy's MinstrelsChristy'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...
and a parody by Conway himself called Uncle Pat's Cabin, and records that the story in its many variants "dominated northern popular culture… for several years".
According to Eric Lott, even those "Tom shows" which stayed relatively close to Stowe's novel played down the feminist
Feminism
Feminism is a collection of movements aimed at defining, establishing, and defending equal political, economic, and social rights and equal opportunities for women. Its concepts overlap with those of women's rights...
aspects of the book and Stowe's criticisms of capitalism, and turned her anti-slavery politics into anti-Southern sectionalism. Francis Underwood, a contemporary, wrote that Aiken's play had also lost the "lightness and gayety" of Stowe's book. Nonetheless, Lott argues, the plays increased sympathy for the slaves among the Northern white working class (which had been somewhat alienated from the abolitionist movement by its perceived elitist backing).
Influence
The influence of the "Tom shows" can be found in a number of plays from the 1850s: most obviously, C.W. Taylor's dramatization of Stowe's Dred, but also J.T. Trowbridge's abolitionist play Neighbor Jackwood, Dion Bouicault's The Octaroon, and a play called The Insurrection, based on John Brown's raid on Harpers Ferry.
Silent film
A silent film is a film with no synchronized recorded sound, especially with no spoken dialogue. In silent films for entertainment the dialogue is transmitted through muted gestures, pantomime and title cards...
era (with Uncle Tom's Cabin being the most-filmed story of that time period). This was due to the continuing popularity of both the book and "Tom shows," meaning audiences were already familiar with the characters and the plot, making it easier for the film to be understood without spoken words.
Several of the early film versions of Uncle Tom's Cabin were essentially filmed versions of "Tom shows." These included:
- A 1903 version of Uncle Tom's Cabin, which was one of the earliest "full-length" movies (although "full-length" at that time meant between 10 and 14 minutes). This film, directed by Edwin S. PorterEdwin S. PorterEdwin Stanton Porter was an American early film pioneer, most famous as a director with Thomas Edison's company...
, used white actors in blackfaceBlackfaceBlackface 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...
in the major roles and black performers only as extrasExtra (actor)A background actor or extra is a performer in a film, television show, stage, musical, opera or ballet production, who appears in a nonspeaking, nonsinging or nondancing capacity, usually in the background...
. This version was similar to many of the "Tom Shows" of earlier decades and featured a large number of black stereotypes (such as having the slaves dance in almost any context, including at a slave auction). - Another film version from 1903 was directed by Siegmund LubinSiegmund LubinSiegmund Lubin was a Polish-American motion picture pioneer.-Biography:He was born as Siegmund Lubszynski in Breslau, Silesia, Germany on April 20, 1851, to a German Jewish family...
and starred Lubin as Simon Legree. While no copies of Lubin's film still exist, according to accounts the movie was similar to Porter's version and reused the sets and costumes from a "Tom Show."
As cinema replaced vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
and other types of live variety entertainment, "Tom shows" slowly disappeared. J.C. Furnas
J.C. Furnas
J.C. Furnas was an American freelance writer. He is best known for his article, commissioned for the Reader's Digest, "---And Sudden Death!" This article brought national attention to the problem of automobile safety, and is the most-reprinted article in the Digest's history.His other works...
, in his book Goodbye to Uncle Tom, stated that he had seen a production in the 1920s in Ohio; the last touring group specializing in "Tomming" he could locate was apparently operating as late as the 1950s.
Online resources
- University of Virginia Web site "Uncle Tom's Cabin and American Culture: A Multi-Media Archive" Ed by Stephen Railton, covers 1830 to 1930, offering links to primary and bibliographic sources on the cultural background, various editions, and public reception of Harriet Beecher Stowe's influential novel. The site also provides the full text of the book, audio and video clips, and examples of related merchandising.