ISBN10: 0819563005, ISBN13: 9780819563002, [publisher: Wesleyan University Press] Softcover 324 pages. A sourcebook of contemporary and historical commen tary on America's first popular mass entertainment. As the black face minstrel show evolved from its beginnings in the American Re volution to its peak during the late 1800s, its frenetic dances, low-brow humor, and lively music provided more than mere entertai nment. Indeed, these imitations and parodies shaped society's per ceptions of African Americans-and of women-as well as made their mark on national identity, policymaking decisions, and other ente rtainment forms such as vaudeville, burlesque, the revue, and, ev entually, film, radio, and television. Gathered here are rare pri mary materials-including firsthand accounts of minstrel shows, mi nstrelsy guides, jokes, sketches, and sheet music-and the best of contemporary scholarship on minstrelsy. Editorial Reviews Revi ew This fine collection contains some of the oldest jokes in U.S. history and some of the freshest scholarship in American Studies . Inside the Minstrel Mask gathers primary sources, classic ninet eenth-century accounts of blackface shows, influential modern acc ounts of the meaning of minstrelsy as a performance and craze, an d exciting new work on race, gender and humor in one of the natio n's most popular and enduring forms of entertainment.?David Roedi gger, University of Minnesota This fine collection contains some of the ...