Charles Callender was the owner of

blackface Blackface is the practice of performers using burned cork, shoe polish, or theatrical makeup to portray a caricature of black people on stage or in entertainment. Scholarship on the origins or definition of blackface vary with some taking a glo ...

minstrel troupes that featured

African-American African Americans, also known as Black Americans and formerly also called Afro-Americans, are an American racial and ethnic group that consists of Americans who have total or partial ancestry from any of the Black racial groups of Africa. ...

performers. Although a

tavern A tavern is a type of business where people gather to drink alcoholic beverages and be served food such as different types of roast meats and cheese, and (mostly historically) where travelers would receive lodging. An inn is a tavern that ...

owner by trade, he entered show business in 1872, when he purchased Sam Hague's Slave Troupe of Georgia Minstrels. Renaming them Callender's Original Georgia Minstrels, he and his business manager, Charles Hicks, followed the lead of other showmen such as

J. H. Haverly Christopher Haverly (June 30,1837– September 27,1901), better known as J. H. Haverly or John H. "Jack" Haverly, was an American theatre manager and promoter (entertainment), promoter of blackface minstrel shows. During the 1870s and 1880s, he c ...

and advertised the troupe far and wide. Callender's Minstrels played to packed houses and positive reviews in the Midwest and Northeast. Over time, the Callender name came to signify "black minstrelsy",Toll 203. and when rival troupes tried to appropriate it, Callender persuaded '' The Clipper'' to refrain from writing about them. Despite the revenues brought in by his star performers, including such talents as Bob Height, Billy Kersands, and Pete Devonear, Callender ignored their demands for more pay and better recognition. Some of them quit to form their own company, an action Callender claimed was tantamount to theft. The issue came to public attention for its racial implications, and most of the performers who had left eventually returned to Callender. The company stayed at the top of black minstrelsy through the mid-1870s. In 1874 or 1875, Callender organized a second troupe of black minstrels that would tour secondary circuits, such as the Midwest. After a bad year in 1877, he sold his main troupe to J. H. Haverly. He continued to operate his secondary troupe until 1881, when he sold it to

Charles Charles is a masculine given name predominantly found in English language, English and French language, French speaking countries. It is from the French form ''Charles'' of the Proto-Germanic, Proto-Germanic name (in runic alphabet) or ''* ...

and

Gustave Frohman Gustave Frohman (c. 1854 – August 16, 1930) was a theatre producer and advance man. He was one of three Frohman brothers who entered show business and he worked for most of his career alongside his brother, Charles Frohman. These two financed ...

. Callender eventually got back into minstrelsy with new black troupes and stakes in others. He funded non-minstrel fare, such as a staging of ''

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 two Volume (bibliography), volumes in 1852, the novel had a profound effect on attitudes toward African Americans ...

'' starring the

Hyers Sisters The Hyers Sisters, Anna Madah (ca. 1855 – 1929) and Emma Louise (ca. 1857 – 1901), were singers and pioneers of black musical theater. With Joseph Bradford and Pauline Hopkins, the Hyers Sisters produced the "first full-fledged musical pla ...

, Emma Hyer and Anna Hyer. Minstrelsy remained his main draw, and he owned troupes into the 1890s.

Notes

References

*Toll, Robert C. (1974). ''Blacking Up: The Minstrel Show in Nineteenth-century America''. New York: Oxford University Press. *Watkins, Mel (1994). ''On the Real Side: Laughing, Lying, and Signifying—The Underground Tradition of African-American Humor that Transformed American Culture, from Slavery to Richard Pryor''. New York: Simon & Schuster. {{DEFAULTSORT:Callender, Charles Blackface minstrel managers and producers Drinking establishment owners Year of birth missing Place of birth missing Year of death missing Place of death missing