PBA Galleries

Two volumes of sheet music, including: “Old Uncle Ned”, No.2 of JIM CROW JUBILEE, A Collection of Negro Melodies as sung by A.F.Winnemore and his band of Serenaders, Arranged for the Piano Forte by August Clapp. 13¼x10½", 4pp., including pictorial cover. * A complete but defective copy of A.F. Winnemore’s “Jim Crow Polka”, No. 5 in The Celebrated Negro Melodies as sung by the Virginia Minstrels. Adapted for the Pianoforte by Thos. Comer. 13¼x10½", 4pp., including the detached pictorial cover, lithographed by Thayer & Co. Boston, which has a full-length diagonal tear, touching the graphic, that is crudely tape-repaired.

A very early printed use of “Jim Crow”, which first appeared in the 1830s as a pejorative synonym for enslaved Negroes. Exemplified here by the racist caricature illustrations on the covers, and the “old Nigger” dialect lyrics, which, curiously, in the second song, include Mexican-American War references that must have been added long after the copyright date. Winnemore was one of the first caucasians to both compose and perform Negro “Minstrel” songs; his Virginia Minstrels/Serenaders, who premiered in New York in 1843, were the most popular of the early “black-face” minstrel groups, credited with introducing the famous American folk songs “Old Dan Tucker” (listed on the 1843 sheet) and “Jimmy Crack Corn”. They may even have performed a song which later inspired Stephen Foster’s “Old Susanna”.