In 1934, the Junior Class of Wiconisco High School, Wiconisco, Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, presented a minstrel program which was performed in black-face.
As reported in the Lykens Standard, November 16, 1934:
WICONISCO BLACK-FACE ARTISTS ENTERTAINED LARGE AUDIENCE, FRIDAY
The minstrel of the Junior Class of Wiconisco High School held in the gymnasium last Friday evening was well-received by a large and appreciative audience. The songs, squibs and dances proved bang-up entertainment for the community. The stars of the evening were: Rapheal Kemble, basso; Sam Klinger, tenor; and the Mae West twins, Ellen Gillis and Lucy Osman. Arlene Salada and Melvin Reiber presented “Smarty,” a novelty number, and the “Dark Town Betterment Society” had the Amos an’ Andy Town policies on the spot for a riot of fun.
Students who were juniors in November 1934 were members of the Class of 1936 and were around the age of 16 at the time of the production. Note that the news article does not give the names of adults associated with the “riot of fun.” At this time, research is on-going into the later lives of those were in the performance.
Black-face “entertainment” was infused into the culture of the Lykens Valley area. Shows were staged as fund raisers for churches, civic groups, veterans groups, and schools. Lykens and Wiconisco had long standing minstrel organizations that were active into the 21st century, but because of the recognition of the inappropriateness of black-face, those routines were modified or dropped from the shows. At the time of this writing, the date the black-face was dropped, is not known.
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For other articles on this blog, see Black-Face.
News article was obtained from Newspapers.com.
Corrections and additional information should be added as comments to this post.