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The Carnival Booster

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Abstract/Description:
The minstrel show 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. Immensely popular in the 19th century, these shows continued into the early twentieth century, being replaced by Vaudeville. Minstrel shows portrayed blacks as happy, carefree, uneducated, and often singing and dancing through life, telling jokes, Today, minstrel shows can be viewed as ‘racially insensitive’ but they reflect the mindset of a society at the time that would also be reflected in art, music, books, and other materials. “The Carnival Booster’ was published as a supplement to the Pensacola Journal in November 1926. The Pensacola Carnival Association was the organization that sponsored Mardi Gras in Pensacola, and the “Great Carnival Minstrel Show” was a fund-raising event for the Association. The supplement incorporates jokes and farce along with a few ‘real’ news articles. For example, President Woodrow Wilson did not visit Pensacola, and the Navy battleships in the harbor were already here, though the headline implies they came expressly for the show. In the style of the minstrel show (see p. 2) the stage was occupied by blackface comedians and an interlocutor (emcee)…but of note, are the prominent Pensacola names listed under the drawing on p. 2. This newspaper was found in a bound volume of the Pensacola Journal by the University of Florida and will be digitized and online in 2015.
Title: The Carnival Booster.
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Name(s): Pensacola Carnival Association, Author
Type of Resource: text
Genre: Pensacola Mardi Gras
Other Date: November 25th and 26th, 1912
Publisher: Pensacola Journal and Pensacola Evening News
Abstract/Description: The minstrel show 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. Immensely popular in the 19th century, these shows continued into the early twentieth century, being replaced by Vaudeville. Minstrel shows portrayed blacks as happy, carefree, uneducated, and often singing and dancing through life, telling jokes, Today, minstrel shows can be viewed as ‘racially insensitive’ but they reflect the mindset of a society at the time that would also be reflected in art, music, books, and other materials. “The Carnival Booster’ was published as a supplement to the Pensacola Journal in November 1926. The Pensacola Carnival Association was the organization that sponsored Mardi Gras in Pensacola, and the “Great Carnival Minstrel Show” was a fund-raising event for the Association. The supplement incorporates jokes and farce along with a few ‘real’ news articles. For example, President Woodrow Wilson did not visit Pensacola, and the Navy battleships in the harbor were already here, though the headline implies they came expressly for the show. In the style of the minstrel show (see p. 2) the stage was occupied by blackface comedians and an interlocutor (emcee)…but of note, are the prominent Pensacola names listed under the drawing on p. 2. This newspaper was found in a bound volume of the Pensacola Journal by the University of Florida and will be digitized and online in 2015.
Identifier: WF1455558300 (IID), uwf:47500 (fedora)
Subject(s): Pensacola Carnival
Pensacola, Florida
Held by: University of West Florida Libraries
Persistent Link to This Record: http://purl.flvc.org/uwf/fd/WF1455558300
Restrictions on Access: See Caption*
Host Institution: UWF

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