JOURNAL OF AMERICAN DRAMA ANd THEAtRE 26, NO.

1 (WINtER 2014)

BETWEEN BLACKFACE AND BONDAGE: THE INCOMPLETELY FORGOTTEN FAiLURE OF THE UNDERGROuND RAILROADS 1879 MiDWESTERN TOUR Mary McAvoy
In 1879, nineteen-year-old Pauline Hopkinss musical slave drama, The Underground Railroad, flopped.1 Reviews panned the production, suggesting the plagiaristic knock-off of Joseph Bradfords Out of Bondage lacked interest and was devoid of plot.2 Audiences noted the lackluster performances, asserting the company cant sing like the Hyers sisters3 (the pioneering African American sister act who had performed in Out of Bondage only a few months earlier).4 Even the plays leading man, Sam Lucas, accepted the productions failure, diplomatically suggesting, the piece failed as the time was not propitious for producing such a play.5 Given the disparaging attitudes toward the drama during its own time, theatre historians often relegate The Underground Railroad to the margins and systematically omit it from larger discussions of African American theatre history in the postbellum period (roughly 1865-1890).6 However,
Hopkins titled the play many different ways in her various revisions. It was initially copyrighted as The Slaves Escape; or, The Underground Railroad and later changed to Peculiar Sam; or, The Underground Railroad; Escape from Slavery; or, The Underground Railroad; and Flight to Freedom; or, The Underground Railroad. I opt to use The Underground Railroad throughout this project for clarity and consistency.
1 2 3 4

Dramatic, New York Clipper, 3 May 1879. The Little Globe, The Globe (Atchison, KS), 19 May 1879.

Jocelyn L. Buckner, Spectacular Opacities: The Hyers Sisters Performances of Respectability and Resistance, African American Review 45, no. 3 (2012): 309-323. Lucas makes this assertion in a posthumously published autobiographical essay published in the New York Age. He mentioned his involvement in this production, the first colored drama, between two anecdotes: one describing a letter of praise he received from Harriet Beecher Stowe after his first performance as Uncle Tom and another about how he met his wife and performance partner, Carrie Melville. This statement about The Underground Railroad (the only negative reference amidst an otherwise celebratory review of his lifes work), indicates this production, and its timely failure, left a lasting influence on Lucas. Sam Lucas Theatrical Career Written By Himself in 1909, New York Age, 13 Jan. 1916, 11.
5 6 Errol Hill, From the Civil War to The Creole Show, in A History of African American Theatre, edited by Errol Hill and James Vernon Hatch (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 61-92; Eileen Southern, Biographical Dictionary of Afro-American and African Musicians (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1982), 53-4; Harry Justin Elam and David Krasner, African-American Performance and Theater History: A Critical Reader (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), 267.

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even though records clearly indicate The Underground Railroad failed in terms of critical and artistic reception, the play also serves as the first extant dramatic text by an African American woman,7 the first widely circulated play by an African American, and the first musical drama to address slaverys impact from an African American perspective.8 Given these milestones, Hopkinss play might also be considered a transitional work bridging minstrelsy performance and later African American musicals like The Creole Show (1890), A Trip to Coontown (1898), and In Dahomey (1902). Even though African American artists presented a plethora of musical plantation dramas, Tom shows, and other new dramas inspired by narratives about slavery between 1865 and 1890 (both in and out of blackface), most discussions credit The Creole Show as the first meaningful departure from minstrelsy performance given its female Interlocutor and other modifications of the minstrelsy form.9 However, despite suggestions that The Creole Shows revisions of minstrel forms provided the first successful challenge of minstrelsys dominance in popular theatre, African American musical dramas like The Underground Railroad reinvented and hybridized minstrelsy forms in the two decades prior to The Creole Shows debut. The Underground Railroads first tour shapes performance histories of these African American musicals, revealing more complexity in the process whereby African American artists negotiated their roles within performance institutions and cultural politics shaping the theatrical landscape in the latter half of the nineteenth century. By reexamining Hopkinss play, its first tour through the Midwestern United States during the spring of 1879, and its final performance in Boston in
Even the most comprehensive works of African American theatre history offer only brief mentions of Hopkins or The Underground Railroad. In her 2006 book Bodies in Dissent, Daphne Brooks suggests that Hopkins is grossly underacknowledged as the first female playwright (284). See also Hills From the Civil War to The Creole Show (73) and Southerns chapter, After the War (253-4) for examples of Hopkinss marginalized status. Similarly, Elam and Krasners African-American Performance and Theater History only references Hopkins in a footnote discussing her novel, Contending Forces (267). Daphne Brooks, Divas and Diasporic Consciousness: Song, Dance, and New Negro Womanhood in the Veil, in Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom, 1850-1910 (Durham: Duke University Press, 2006), 281-342; Errol Hill, From the Civil War; Eileen Southern. After the War, in The Music of Black Americans: A History (New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997), 253-4; Elam and Krasner, African American Performance and Theater History.
7 8 White abolitionist playwrights authored Uncle Toms Cabin and Out of Bondage two plays that share common characteristics with The Underground Railroad. Although William Wells Browns The Escape; or, A Leap for Freedom preceded The Underground Railroad, it was not widely performed. See Edward W. Farrison, Phylon Profile, XVI: William Wells Brown, Phylon 9 no. 1 (1948): 13-23. 9

Hill, From the Civil War, 91-2.

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1880, I suggest The Underground Railroad was an important experimental work that hybridized minstrelsy forms and popular entertainments during the post-bellum period in an attempt to reshape performance paradigms for African American artists. The simultaneity of The Underground Railroads marginalized position within histories of African American theatre and its historical significance as a path-breaking production, illustrates how attending to theatrical failure produces a historiographical quandary. In many ways, theatrical failures represent the pleasures and torments of incomplete forgetting found in performances associated with resistance, particularly in regards to African American performance after the Civil War.10 As scholars attempt to reconcile the complicated function of minstrelsy within theatrical and cultural landscapes between 1865 and 1900, other genres of African American performance including non-minstrelsy burlesques, jubilee concerts, cakewalking competitions, amateur productions by performance clubs, and, central to this analysis, musical slave dramas like Hopkinss The Underground Railroad, often fall by the wayside.11 This omission is expected since many artists like Hopkins often avoided direct and overt critique of minstrelsy forms, and instead, made performances that hybridized popular components of minstrelsy with other popular performance forms of the time including melodrama, operetta, protovaudevillian variety shows, and choral performance. While innovative, these productions did not reinvent minstrelsy in ways that were immediately or explicitly evident. For example, Hopkinss play included a full cast of stock characters and comedic bits pulled directly from minstrelsy and plantation narratives, including Mammy and Jim Crow characters and soft-shoe dance numbers performed to gospel song spoofs. However, Hopkins employed these stock characters and minstrel bits to make subtle but important commentary about the lives of freed slaves from an African American perspectivea point to which I will return later in the article. These small revisions likewise led to small spaces for resistance in which artists and performers found agency while keeping
10 Roachs discussion regarding the vast scale of the project of whiteness that also fostered complex and ingenious schemes to displace, refashion, and transfer those persistent memories into representations more amenable to those who most frequently wielded the pencil and eraser is particularly apropos for discussions of The Underground Railroad and other experimental works like it. See the Introduction: History, Memory, and Performance in Joseph R. Roach, Cities of the Dead: Circum-Atlantic Performance (New York: Columbia University Press, 1996), 1-25.

Hill, From the Civil War, 68, 74, 85, 91; Eileen Southern, The Origin of Black Musical Theatre: A Preliminary Report, Black Music Research Journal 2 (19811982): 1-14.
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their works palatable for audiences conditioned to expect a specific and narrow construction of African American identity on stage. Thus, these experimental genres all contribute to a performance lineage, defined by a desire to reinvent minstrelsys rigid structures and racist ideologies that reshaped narratives and aesthetics in African American performance. Examining these experimental and hybrid performance genres reveals the turbulent processes whereby African American artists in the postbellum period struggled for artistic and political agency during a moment when the US as a nation similarly struggled to reconcile issues of race and power bound up in the post-Civil War fallout. Pauline Hopkinss play and its 1879 Midwestern tour serves as a case study of one group of artists of color who set out to challenge minstrelsys dominance by reinventing popular theatre from within a rigid set performance expectations. Examining this work helps reshape understandings of African American artists who navigated cultural politics, audience expectations, and theatrical trends after the Civil War. Between Blackface and Bondage: The Historical Milieu Hopkins crafted her play early in her literary career and just after the Reconstruction period, an anxious time when the United States attemptedand, in many ways, failedto heal wounds dividing the nation geographically, politically, and ideologically as a result of the long and bloody Civil War. Within this period of redefinition, US popular performance struggled to address the shifting relationship between race, power, and the new postbellum US identity. Blackface minstrelsyone of the most influential and undeniably racist forms of US entertainment emerged from this cultural turmoil. In the period between the end of the Civil War and 1879 (when Pauline Hopkins wrote The Underground Railroad) minstrelsy performance grew staggeringly popular, securing its place as the USs first original contribution to world theatre.12 By the late 1860s, minstrelsy performancetraditionally white performers in blackface portraying African American stereotypes attracted African American performers as well. African American performers entered into minstrelsy for both pragmatic and ideological reasons. Minstrelsy provided African American entertainers secure work in an otherwise white theatre industry. African American artists willing to blacken their faces and portray Jim Crow, Zip Coon, or other minstrel stereotypes earned reasonable wages and developed a strong following
12 Eric Lott, Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), 3.

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among both African American and white audiences.13 Artists like Wallace King, Sam Lucas, Bert Williams, Billy Kersands, and others all garnered fame at least in part because of their work in African American minstrelsy performance. Opportunities presented for artists willing to perform in African American minstrelsy juxtaposed with otherwise harsh cultural conditions endured by many African Americans after the Civil War. At a time when many African Americans faced abject poverty and racial discrimination due to failed Reconstruction efforts resultant from post-Civil War political fallout (a fate sealed by the election of the proSouth presidential candidate Rutherford B. Hayes in 1877), minstrelsy performance generated a small, albeit problematic, venue for black artists to find legitimacy as artists and performers.14 Within this complicated cultural milieu, Pauline Hopkins, a nineteen-year-old African American woman living in Boston, developed The Underground Railroad. Hopkins is best known for her essays, short stories, and novels that engage with themes related to suffrage, racial equality, and black identity in the post-Civil War United States. Her most well known work, Contending Forces: A Romance Illustrative of Negro Life North and South (1900) has received attention from a variety of scholars as activist literature that includes unapologetic representations of violence against African Americans in the late 1800s.15 Hopkinss activist leanings echo throughout her other writings as well. She served as an editor for Colored American Magazine, one of the first widely circulated periodicals for African American audiences, between 1900 and 1904. During her tenure at Colored American Magazine, she published a several serialized novels including Hagars Daughter: A Story of Southern Prejudice; Of One Blood: Or, the Hidden Self; and Winona: A Tale of Negro Life in the South and Southwest. All of these narratives dealt with issues of racial and gender discrimination. Additionally, Hopkins also wrote essays, opinion pieces, and other nonfiction works that primarily dealt with issues specific to African American

Annemarie Bean, James V. Hatch, and Brooks McNamara, Editors Preface in Inside the Minstrel Mask: Readings in Nineteenth-Century Blackface Minstrelsy (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England for Wesleyan University Press, 1996), xi-xiv.
13

See Eileen Southerns article on The Georgia Minstrels for additional discussions of the development, funding, and management of minstrelsy performance. Inside the Minstrel Mask, 165-71.
14 15 Thomas Cassidy, Contending Contexts: Pauline Hopkinss Contending Forces, African American Review 32, no. 4 (1998): 661-72; Jill Bergman, Everything we hoped shed be: Contending Forces in Hopkins Scholarship, African American Review 38, no. 2 (2004): 181-199.

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readers.16 In practically all of her writings, Hopkins stridently challenged prevailing representations of African Americansparticularly African American womenin the late 1800s. Given these themes, many literary scholars rightly herald Pauline Hopkins as woman ahead of her time in regards to her later literary career. However, seeds of these ideas appear in her early dramatic works, including The Underground Railroad. A ballad opera with numerous songs, dances, and comedic bits, The Underground Railroad dramatizes the romance between two slaves Sam, a comic peculiar fellow, and Jinny, the plantation nightingale as they and their family secure freedom via the Underground Railroad. The play opens on a Mississippi plantation on the eve of the Civil War, and the opening exposition reveals that the benevolent Marser has died, leaving behind a poorly run plantation under the supervision of youn Marse and fellow slave, evil overseer Jim.17 Soon after, Mammy announces that the big house has married off Jinny, Sams love interest, to Jim. Sam, unable to stomach this affront by Jim and the new master, announces, Dars been suthin a growin an a growin inter me, an it keep sayin, Run way, run away, Sam. Be a man, be a free man (8). The couple makes plans to flee to Canidy via the Underground Railroad, and the rest of the family decides to join them. The final scene jumps forward to Christmas Eve six years after the group has made it to freedom. The characters now live in Canada, and the Civil War is over. Mammy and her long lost love, Caesar, have married; Jinny has become a singer; Juno, Sams Topsy-esque sister, is a schoolteacher; and Sam has returned to the US to become an Ohio Congressman (31). Everyone, save Mammy and Caesar, now speak in elevated English without the slave dialect used in previous scenes, linguistically demonstrating how the move from slavery to freedom has fundamentally changed their identities. They are happy and financially stable. The only lingering issue rests with Sams inability to marry Jinny; Jinny refuses to marry Sam until they find Jim and annul their forced marriage. Just after Sam arrives home to announce that he has won the Ohio election, overseer Jim knocks at the door. Although the group fears he has come to reclaim Jinny as his wife, Jim instead announces that he has become a lawyer in Massachusetts, legally married another woman, and fathered a set of twinsappropriately named Sam and Jinny.
Hopkins journalistic writings include A Primer of Facts Pertaining to the Early Greatness of the African Race and the Possibility of Its Restoration by Its DescendantsWith Epilogue (Cambridge: P. E. Hopkins and Company, 1905); Latest Phases of the Race Problem in America, Colored American, February 1903; and Furnace Blasts I: The Growth of the Social Evil Among All Classes and Races in America, Colored American, February 1903.
16 17 Hopkins, The Underground Railroad, 2-3. Subsequent references to this play will be made parenthetically.

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He has oly called hyar to stantiate myself an be friens long wif you (30). Using his new legal expertise, Jim asserts the invalidity of his and Jinnys marriage, and thus Sam and Jinny are now free to marry. In the final moment of the play, Sam, in a flurry of excitement, steps out of the narrative for one final bit. He turns to the audience and says, excuse me for laying aside the dignity of an elected M. C., and allow me to appear before you once more as peculiar Sam of the old underground railroad, and he follows with a song-and-dance performance of James A. Blands parodic tune, Oh, Dem Golden Slippers. The entire drama is interspersed with comedic bits, dance numbers, and songs. Although seemingly superfluous to the larger narrative, these variety components highlight leading man Sam Lucass talent and reputation.18 Lucas worked in variety of performance forms from the mid-1800s until his death in 1916, and over duration of his long career, he was deeply invested in reinventing roles for African American artists. His participation in The Underground Railroad, especially in his portrayal of a comedic slavehand caricature who becomes an elected state representative, was another moment whereby the artist challenged the status quo regarding African American performance. Lucas was free born in Ohio and started his career as an African American blackface minstrel in New Orleans. During his career, he performed a myriad of African American roles, from a minstrel line endman to the first African American Uncle Tom on stage and screen.19 Even though he capitulated to expectations for African American artists via his work in minstrelsy, plantation performances, and other stereotypical and caricatured African American roles, he also challenged these expectations by playing roles outside of these paradigms as well. Lucas performed in melodramas with otherwise white casts, played aristocratic rolesabsent of stereotypical slave dialectin productions like The Princess of Orelia, and pioneered the creole show format in collaboration with manager Sam T. Jack.20 As each of these examples demonstrates, Lucas, self-titled the dean of the colored theatrical profession, was deeply invested in negotiating legitimacy for African American performers during the volatile latter half
By 1879, Lucas had toured extensively with the Original Georgia Minstrels troupe and with the Hyers sisters in Out of Bondage. He was also the African American artist to appear with an otherwise white cast in a melodrama when he starred in The Black Diamonds of Molly MacGuires. Lucas, Sam Lucas, 11; Southern, Introduction, xvii.
18

Gerlyn E. Austin, The Advent of the Negro Actor on the Legitimate Stage in America, The Journal of Negro Education 35, no. 3 (July 1, 1966): 239-40; Lucas, Sam Lucas, 11; Thomas L. Riis, The Music and Musicians in Nineteenth-Century Productions of Uncle Toms Cabin, American Music 4, no. 3 (October 1, 1986): 274.
19 20

Ibid.

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of the nineteenth century. Hopkins wrote her musical drama specifically for Lucas, who, by 1879, was a famous minstrel and variety performer. The title selected for this iteration of the play, Peculiar Sam; Or, The Underground Railroad, draws attention to his involvement, and he was the undeniable star of the show. Production advertisements from the Milwaukee Sentinel further reinforce suggestions that Hopkins created her play specifically for Lucas when they describe the play as being written expressly for him by Miss Pauline E. Hopkins.21 Several positive reviews of the production specifically reference Lucas, and in many ways, Lucas was the glue that kept the production together. Even though Lucas likely set out to push boundaries with his participation in The Underground Railroad, his involvement was also a smart business decision. Only months prior to the The Underground Railroads premiere, Lucas had toured a similar play, Out of Bondage, through the Midwest. Following the same touring route as Out of Bondage helped The Underground Railroad capitalize on Lucass celebrity status. Since few stars traveled through the Midwest, audiences extended a great deal of loyalty to performers who made repeat stops through the region. Sam Lucas, who, by this point, had stared in Uncle Toms Cabin and Out of Bondage, certainly fit this category. In addition to his multiple tours with plays like Out of Bondage, Lucas also frequented the Midwest with African American Georgia minstrel troupes, and Midwestern audiences loved him. His involvement with The Underground Railroad provided the productions star appeal, and practically every advertisement and review of the show mentioned his irresistible performance and lauded his national reputation second to none.22 This picture of Lucas offers an alternate view of African American artists as empowered participants in their business affairs, marketing of shows, artistic license, and roles as celebrities during this period, indicating a more complex conception of African American artists agency within Midwestern performance spheres during 1865-1900. Hopkins left open her script so that Lucas might improvise in his starring role, singing crowd favorites and adapting his performance to please audiences each night. For example, in the play, the group makes several stops, with each new destination allowing Lucas a moment in the spotlight to sing or perform a bit. In one moment, Sam and Jim have an exaggeratedly comedic fight after Jim sneaks up on the group dressed as a ghost. In another moment, Sam finds an old mans clothes, dresses up, and
21 22

Grand Opera House, Advertisement, Milwaukee Daily Sentinel. Underground Railroad, review, The Wichita Eagle, 29 May 1879, 1.

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sings Old Man Jake, his hit song (16-17, 27-27). Some of these bits move forward the narrative and others are seemingly illogical in regards to the overall plot, highlighting the plays flexible format that Hopkins designed to accommodate new songs, different comedic bits, and other impromptu changes over the plays life. The Underground Railroads formulaic plot and flexible structure reflects trends in post-bellum performance. During this time, some African American minstrelsy performers also garnered attention for roles they played out of blackface as part of new works that capitalized on the successful dramatic adaptations by white actors in blackface of Harriet Beecher Stowes abolitionist novel Uncle Toms Cabin and other similar plantation narratives. The experimental nature of these new works, including performance of these roles by African American artists without blackface make-up, more complex and nuanced characterizations of African American characters, and narratives that synthesized tropes found in both minstrelsy and other popular entertainments, demonstrated how artists made attempts to reframe popular entertainment in order to reinvent African American performance paradigms. These theatrical experiments paved a way for other dramas, like The Creole Show, to be taken seriously decades later. As alluded to in discussion of Sam Lucass contribution to the play, considering The Underground Railroads role as a transitional drama requires a discussion of its relationship to one of the most significant African American musical dramas that challenged minstrelsys stronghold: Out of Bondage. Out of Bondage, a musical slave narrative billed as a moral and musical drama, provided the first notable challenge to minstrelsy entertainment. White playwright and abolitionist Joseph Bradford wrote the play, a ballad opera about a family of slaves as they secured freedom in the North, specifically for the sister act Anna Madah and Emma Louise Hyers, and Sam Lucas performed alongside the Hyers sisters in the role of Mischevious Henry. When Out of Bondage premiered in 1876, it impressed audiences with the best colored artists in the world portraying slave characters without burnt cork visages commonly associated with African Americans on stage.23 Reviewers of the original production noted this rejection of minstrelsy forms and suggested that Out of Bondage typified the emergence of the race from slavery to freedom.24 The play toured extensively throughout the US from 1876 to 1878, paving the way for
23 Eileen Southern, Introduction, African American Theater: Out of Bondage (1876) and Peculiar Sam; or, The Underground Railroad (1879), ed. Eileen Southern, vol. 9 (New York: Garland, 1994), xxiii-xxvi. 24

Ibid., xi.

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other traveling non-minstrel musical dramas like Urlina, African Princess in 1877, Colored Aristocracy in 1877, and The Underground Railroad in 1879.25 Although Out of Bondage marked an important transition from blackface entertainment to African American performance out of blackface, the production was not a critical success. One review in Chicago noted that Bradfords drama was a loosely-strung play . . . not particularly bright in dialogue, despite the plays inclusion of several notable performances by the Hyers sisters, Sam Lucas, Wallace King, and other African American artists.26 The critical response to Out of Bondage, a simple story about a slave familys experiences before and after the Civil War, reflects perceived insufficiencies in Bradfords skeletal playtext, which was designed to accommodate improvisation and vocal performance from crossover variety artists who otherwise worked as minstrelsy performers and professional singers. In creating a new proto-vaudeville performance paradigm that synthesized plantation narratives, minstrelsy, and the increasingly popular variety acts, Bradford focused more attention on en vogue styles of performance, while neglecting dramatic structure and character developmentat least in the minds of some reviewers. This critical dismissal of Bradfords play as a poorly formed dramatic work overshadows the productions revisions of minstrelsy performance that dominated theatrical landscapes after the Civil War. Out of Bondages success and failure relates directly to The Underground Railroad. It is no overstatement to suggest that Hopkins plagiarized Out of Bondage when creating The Underground Railroad:27 both dramas are skeletal, employing a four-act structure to give room for the shows stars to improvise; both dramas incorporate numerous slave spirituals, jubilee songs, and plantation melodies woven throughout the dramatic narrative, with as many as eleven tunes shared between the two plays;28 both plays include a comic peculiar male slave as the main character, portrayed by Sam Lucas (Mischievous Henry in Out of Bondage; Peculiar Sam in The Underground Railroad); both chronicle a slave couples travels via the Underground Railroad, ending with a family celebration of freedom in the North after the younger family members have secured
25 Many sources credit Pauline Hopkins with writing Colored Aristocracy, but its text and most of its production history is lost. 26 The New Chicago, Inter Ocean, 7 February 1878, 8. See also Hills discussion of the lackluster critical reception Out of Bondage received in The Civil War to The Creole Show, 70-2. 27 See Bradford and Hopkinss texts side by side in Southerns African American Theater: Out of Bondage (1876) and Peculiar Sam; or, The Underground Railroad (1879). 28

Ibid., x.

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jobs and financial security; both dramas toured throughout the Midwest following very similar routes to one another; and both chronicle the experience of slavery from the slaves perspective.29 In fact, the texts so closely emulate one another that reviews of The Underground Railroad in a variety of sources make note of the striking similarities between Hopkinss play and Out of Bondage. One reviewer stated that The Underground Railroad was fashioned after the 1876 work, while another suggested, the drama is similar to the famous Hyers Sisters Out of Bondage.30 These reviews not only draw attention to Out of Bondages influence upon Hopkinss work, but also highlight the perceived inferiorities of The Underground Railroad when comparing the two plays. By taking inspiration from Out of Bondages skeletal narrative designed to highlight performers talents, Hopkins positioned her play to be judged quite harshly at the time of its publication if the talent hired for her version failed to deliver on the comedic bits, dance routines, and vocal performances esteemed in Out of Bondage. Although The Underground Railroads imitative nature is undeniable, a closer reading of the drama reveals meaningful distinctions between Hopkins and Bradfords dramas. The first and most obvious distinction becomes apparent when comparing the two authors. Like so many narratives about slavery from this period, Bradford wrote his drama from the perspective of a white abolitionist, and the narrative, while sympathetic to abolitionist causes, does not explore nuances associated with African Americans transition from slavery to freedom. While Hopkins took inspiration from Bradfords drama, her unique perspective as an African American woman living in a community that supported freed slaves before, during, and after the Civil War, distinguishes her play from Out of Bondage.31 The most important difference between the texts appears at the end of Hopkinss play. Instead of ending on an unreservedly happy note as in Out of Bondage, The Underground Railroad depicts nuance and complexity regarding Sam and his familys struggle to carve out a life as freed slaves, particularly in regards to Jims arrival at the end of The Underground Railroad, a plot element absent from Bradfords drama. As Lois Brown points out in her examination of Hopkinss work, although Jim presents his calling card to Sam and family, indicating his status a freed
29 30

The New Chicago, 8.

The Underground Railroad, review of The Underground Railroad at the Grand Operahouse, Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, 1 April 1879, 4; The Flight for Freedom, review of The Underground Railroad, Rockford Daily Register, 3 March 1879. See James Oliver Horton and Lois E. Horton, Black Bostonians: Family Life and Community Struggle in the Antebellum North, revised edition (New York: Holmes & Meier, 1979).
31

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and educated African AmericanMr. James Peters, Esq., D. D., attorney at law, at the Massachusetts barthe card also reads declined overseer of the Magnolia plantation.32 This reference to his former status, a role supposedly rendered obsolete by the Civil War, exemplifies, as Brown notes, the groups ongoing struggle to free [themselves] from slavery and to enjoy the full benefits of liberty.33 Despite becoming a Congressman, Sam still relies on Jim to guarantee his rights to a full life that includes marriage and a family of his own. In effect, Jim, and the past he signifies, haunts Sam. The final moment of the play reinforces this ambivalence. When Sam turns toward the audience, sloughs off his elevated diction, excuses himself for laying aside his dignity, and performs in the style of his former slave self, he embodies the conflicting double consciousness of which W. E. B. Dubois writes when he asserts, The history of the American Negro is the history of strife. . . . He simply wishes to make it possible for a man to be both a Negro and an American.34 Despite Sams freedom, he can never completely detach himself from his past.35 This ending alludes to a complicated cultural reality with which white playwrights and authors like Stowe and Bradford often avoidedor to which they were ignorantin their narratives. Hopkinss subtle commentary about the inner struggles of her characters distinguishes her play from her contemporaries and demonstrates one way in which she employed acceptable theatrical forms to make important observations and critiques about the Reconstruction period from an African American perspective.36 Despite this compelling commentary, the challenges associated with the transitional nature of Hopkinss play overshadow her revisions to the musical slave drama genre. I have uncovered no critical response at the time of the plays production that acknowledged Hopkinss revised ending. Unsurprisingly, critics and audiences seemed to look at the play
32 33 34

Hopkins, Peculiar Sam, 34; Brown, Pauline. 136-7. Brown, Pauline, 136-7.

W. E. B. Du Bois, The Souls of Black Folk: Essays and Sketches (London: A. Constable, 1905).
35 See Lois Browns extended analysis of this section of the play in her biography of Hopkins. Brown, Pauline, 136-8.

See work by Ann Shockley, Hanna Wallinger, John Gruesser, Lois Brown, and Daphne Brooks for additional literary analysis of Hopkinss play. Hanna Wallinger, Pauline E. Hopkins: A Literary Biography (Athens: University of Georgia Press, 2005); John Cullen Gruesser, The Unruly Voice: Rediscovering Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996). Lois Brown, Pauline Elizabeth Hopkins: Black Daughter of the Revolution (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2008); Brooks Divas and Diasporic Performance, 281-302.
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with a more superficial eye and felt that The Underground Railroad was predictable and poorly formed replica that failed to improve on the variety format presented in Bradfords play. The New York Clipper offers one of the only reviews in publications out of Chicago, New York, Boston, or Philadelphia and sums up the play in mordant terms: While the play lacks interest and is devoid of plot, it yet serves as a peg on which to hang several excellently rendered plantation melodies. This company might properly be called a variety one as, in addition to the play, they give a closing variety performance, musical in the extreme and possessing merit.37 While this critique highlights The Underground Railroads shortcomings as a piece of theatre, it also alludes to critical bias surrounding the nascent musical slave drama genre. By suggesting that Hopkinss drama functioned as a poorly formed narrative redeemed only by the artists performance of nostalgic plantation songs, the New York Clipper review reveals expectations established by performances of wellfunded and expertly managed minstrelsy troupes and a complete lack of critical consciousness regarding any commentary the play might present. Reviewers and audiences likely could not see through to the political commentary Hopkins infused into her drama since the plays structure diverged from minstrel shows profoundly racist, but regimented and highly polished format. Even more, the reviewers redemption of the production as a vehicle for excellently rendered plantation melodies, one of the few performance genres in which African American performers had garnered increasing legitimacy in dominant performance spheres via groups like the Fisk Jubilee Singers and minstrel performers who wrote popular songs, further demonstrates narrow understandings of acceptable African American performance forms during this period.38 These reviews all reinforce leading man Sam Lucass suggestion that, indeed, the time was not propitious for producing such a play. Given the limited and sharp critique of Hopkinss drama in publications like the New York Clipper, it is not surprising that the plays managers bypassed performance hubs like New York, Boston, and Philadelphia, and instead, toured the production throughout the Midwest.
37 38

Dramatic, New York Clipper, 3 May 1879, 46.

See J. B. T. Marsh and Gustavus D. Pikes 1883 book The Story of the Jubilee Singers (Boston: Houghton, Osgood, 1880) for relevant discussion of African American musical performance after the Civil War.

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Between Milwaukee and Maquoketa: The Midwestern Tour In addition to the importance of the play as a stepping-stone between blackface performance and more critically acclaimed African American musicals around the turn of the century, The Underground Railroad also functions as a case study of performance within the marginalized geographies of the Midwestern United States after the Civil War. While scholarly opinions regarding The Underground Railroads status as a critical and artistic failure limit larger discussions about the play, a more troubling consequence of this disregard becomes apparent when noting the plays strikingly incomplete production history. Until recently, the few studies of The Underground Railroad asserted that the play held its first and only performance at Bostons Oakland Garden as part of a July Fourth celebration in 1880.39 However, as Lois Brown, Hopkinss biographer, astutely notes, despite longtime scholarly assertion that the play was performed just once in Boston . . . the record clearly shows this was not the case.40 The archive associated with The Underground Railroads first tour reveals a grueling schedule throughout Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, and Wisconsin during the spring of 1879, more than a year before the Boston production.41 On this tour, thousands of Midwestern audience members witnessed The Underground Railroad, and the play received extensive reviews in a host of Midwestern newspapers. The profuse historical record surrounding The Underground Railroads first tour provides a clear counterpoint to dominant views that Hopkinss play achieved only one inconsequential performance in Boston. Between 23 March and 20 June 1879, The Underground Railroads company, a cast of nearly a dozen colored persons managed by minstrel manager Z. W. Sprague, endured an exhausting tour that originated and closed in Chicago and circulated through more than thirty cities and five states.42 The performance wove together Hopkinss text, deliberately left open to accommodate changing choral and instrumental performance,
39 Bernard L Peterson, The African American Theatre Directory, 1816-1960: A Comprehensive Guide to Early Black Theatre Organizations, Companies, Theatres, and Performing Groups (Westport, CT.: Greenwood Press, 1997), 97; Bernard L. Peterson, Profiles of African American Stage Performers and Theatre People, 1816-1960 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2001), 125; Hill From the Civil War, 73. Eileen Southern is one of the few scholars who has looked extensively at The Underground Railroad and asserted that its production history extended beyond the Boston performance in 1880. Southern, Introduction, xvii. 40 41 42

Brown, Pauline, 11. See appendix A. Ibid.

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with popular slave spirituals and minstrel show hits that changed over the course of the tour. Hopkinss drama included a cast of African American and Cuban performers, recruited by Sprague in Chicago earlier in the year.43 In addition to the beloved comedic antics by Sam Lucas in his portrayal of Peculiar Sam, the tour also featured a host of less famous performers of color. Most notable among the cast was Cuban string performer Jose Brindes de Salis, son of Claudio Brindes de Salas Garrido. He and Lucas were supported by a select party of colored artists including E. Johnson, The Fernandez couple, Robert Crawford, and B. G. Berger.44 In addition to their performance of the play, the company often performed a drawing room concert of sacred music and gospel songs after the performance. This concert aligned with similar post-show choral performances included in the Out of Bondage tour and gave audiences two shows for the price of one.45 Tickets ranged in price from theatre to theatre, but were typically inexpensive, with general admission ranging from fifteen to thirty-five cents and reserved seating running around fifty to seventy-five cents.46 Reports indicate that houses were modest to full, with one performance in Galesburg, IL drawing $195, and the company played multiple nights in multiple cities.47 Overall, Sprague designed the production to accommodate changes while on tour and to meet the entertainment needs of Midwestern audiences. On 23 March, the day Hopkins secured a copyright for her play, The Underground Railroad held a soft opening in several Illinois cities, then premiered to Wisconsin audiences at Milwaukees Grand Operahouse on Monday, 31 March.48 The short lapse in time between copyright and the
As a reaction to the Guerra de los Diez Aos between 1868 and 1878, many Cuban musicians fled Cuba and settled into cultural centers like New Orleans. There, they collaborated with other artists of color. For additional discussion, see Christopher Washburnes The Clave of Jazz: A Caribbean Contribution to the Rhythmic Foundation of an African-American Music, Black Music Research Journal 17 no. 1 (1997): 59-80.
43 44 Brown, Pauline Hopkins, 111-5; The Flight for Freedom, review of The Underground Railroad, Rockford Daily Register, 3 March 1879. 45 The Underground, review of The Underground Railroad, Oshkosh Daily Northwestern, 5 April 1879.

In New York City, tickets for shows typically averaged between one and two dollars. See High or Low Prices; The Ruinous Free-Pass System and the Great Extent to Which it is Carried How Much a Manager May Spend On His Plays, The New York Times, 14 January 1878.
46

Galesburg, IL Review (23 June, 1879) and Quincy, IL Review (16 June, 1879), Folder 6, Pauline Hopkins Archive, Fisk University Library, Nashville, TN.
47 48 Brown, Pauline, 111; The Underground Railroad in Milwaukee Daily Sentinel; Grand Opera House, advertisement, Milwaukee Daily Sentinel, 28 Mar. 1879.

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first production of the play implies that Hopkins created The Underground Railroad under significant time constraints, likely in the hopes of getting the show on the touring circuit before interest in Out of Bondage waned. A small note in one of Hopkinss handwritten librettos strengthens this suggestion: The words found in the 1st act are only placed there as a guide. Any songs may be used that are as appropriate as these. I have not quite finished the parts but send Mr. Lucas [sic], as the hardest and most important. Please inform me where the parts can meet you this week.49 The note references Sam Lucas, who had just finished his tour with Out of Bondage in the winter of 1878, indicating that he had already accepted the lead role of Sam. Though The Underground Railroads first tour capitalized on Out of Bondages success and Lucass celebrity, the decision to send out Hopkinss play on the Midwestern circuit also suggests receptiveness toward this experimental genre amongst Midwestern audiences. Although rarely discussed in larger works about theatre history, Midwestern territories provided sites for theatrical experimentation between 1865 and 1900. This open-minded atmosphere arose from a variety of both ideological and pragmatic reasons associated with the Midwests rapid development after the Civil War. A post-Civil War industrialization boom, which included unprecedented development of the railroad system and an influx of new immigrants via the increasingly efficient steamship industries, resulted in booms in population in a region once considered the dangerous frontier. Between 1865 and 1880, once-rugged western territories were accessible via the railways, and settlement areas developed throughout the region. For example, Milwaukees population grew from 9,500 to over 200,000 between 1840 and 1890 alone, and similar growth occurred throughout the region in cities like Chicago, Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cincinnati, and others.50 Many of these settlements included immigrant groups new to the US, including the Swedish, German, and Norwegian, who, on the whole, held more tolerant views about race and more progressive ideologies about the politics of Reconstruction than groups in the Northeast or South.51 The decision to premiere The Underground Railroad in Milwaukeea booming
Pauline Hopkins, Peculiar Sam, handwritten draft, folder 5, Pauline Hopkins Archive, Fisk University Library, Nashville, TN, 2.
49

See essays in Andrew R. L. Cayton and Susan E. Grays The American Midwest: Essays on Regional History (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2001) as well as Andrew R. L. Cayton and Peter S. Onuf s The Midwest and the Nation: Rethinking the History of an American Region (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1990).
50

See Leslie Schwalms thorough investigation of Reconstruction in the Upper Midwest in Empancipations Diaspora: Race and Reconstruction in the Upper Midwest (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009).
51

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Midwestern city with progressive, if not radical, social policies about race, labor, and government that was also experiencing a cultural renaissance by way of the convergence of German, Scandinavian, and Polish immigrant groupswas a bold statement about the Midwests value to new touring groups with experimental works. Although collective ideologies of Midwestern communities likely provided a more accepting atmosphere in which The Underground Railroad might succeed, the decision to tour through this region was also pragmatic. Touring shows, particularly new works without a strong word-of-mouth following or big-name reputation, lived and died by the money raised through ticket sales each night. In order to stay financially afloat, The Underground Railroad Company needed to play to full houses in inexpensive venues, and the Midwestern touring circuit provided the best opportunity for large audiences and more agreeable on share agreements with managers.52 These desirable conditions arose from the economic realities of overexpansion in the Midwest. During the postCivil War population booms, a glut of enterprising theatre managers overspeculated and produced too many performance spaces for fledgling communities to support, a concern only complicated by the economic downturn after the Panic of 1873. The builders and managers of these opulent performance venues, often called grand opera houses, spared little expense in their construction, and the spaces featured some of the most recent theatrical innovations, including gas lighting, ample dressing rooms, and frescoes and drop scenery painted by famous scenic artists.53 The opulence integrated into these new theatres signified, at least to Midwestern communities, the emergence of Midwestern audiences civility from the once rough-and-tumble frontier.54 However, these opulent new spaces often found themselves in financial crisis when managers failed to recruit quality talent. One example of these difficulties appears in an anonymous review of the renovation of Indianapoliss Grand Opera House in 1879. In a discussion of two theatre managers decision to simultaneously renovate the Grand Opera House and neighboring
52 See Actors On the Road; Something about the Stars and Combinations of this Season for a first-hand account of an actors experiences in touring companies during this period. The New York Times, 4 March 1883.

Park Theatre, advertisement, New York Clipper 19 April 1879, 32; Apollo, advertisement, New York Clipper, 19 April 1879, 32; John Hanners, It was Play Or Starve: Acting in the Nineteenth Century American Popular Theatre (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1993), 113-5.
53

There exist few studies about Midwestern Opera Houses. See Janet Zivanovics 1988 publication, Opera Houses of the Midwest (Kansas: Mid-America Theatre Conference, 1988) for a more thorough discussion.
54

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Metropolitan Theatre, the reviewer notes, It is extremely doubtful that two first-class theatres can live in this city. Another concern arose from the conditions of railway travel. Although the new railway system provided unprecedented efficiency in transporting goods to Midwestern territories, passenger travel via train was still a dangerous and inefficient affair. Many big stars, accustomed to the conveniences and cosmopolitanism found in the Northeast, reluctantly and infrequently ventured out to the Midwest.55 Due to these complications, many Midwestern theatres struggled to stay alive. These Midwestern theatre crises play out in the New York Clipper around the same time of The Underground Railroads first tour. In their desperation to attract at least marginally talented artists at bargainbasement rates, theatre managers issued guarantees for performers if the talents price was right. The Coliseum Theatre of Kansas City, Missouri announced in a large advertisement, salaries must be low, as they are sure.56 Similarly, the Milwaukee Theatre insisted that artists of ability can always secure a date, but they must also state their lowest possible terms for compensation requirements.57 The Olympic Theatre of Sioux City, Iowa, in an almost desperate plea, announced, artists of acknowledged ability can find dates at this place. All letters answered.58 These urgent pleas for talent highlight the dire conditions of Midwestern theatres around the time Hopkins created her drama. This desperation for performers proved advantageous for the cast of The Underground Railroad. With few big stars willing to visit the Midwest, experimental works flourished. In his study of this period, John Hanners notes, despite the increasing interconnectedness of the Midwest after the Civil War, audiences still had to make do . . . with second-rate dramas, crude farces, and a variety of amusements.59 This reference second-rate and crude performances refers to the variety nature of performances found on the Midwestern touring circuit, alluding to the experimental works generated by artists, free of strictures placed on them in larger cities, who took risks, hybridized performance genres, and developed new forms of variety entertainment. Audiences had a chance to see it all: all-female minstrelsy-ballet hybrids; pedestal dancers and Irish
See John Hannerss case study about Edwin Booths 1873 tour to Terre Haute, Indiana (It was Play, 113-28).
55 56 57 58 59

Coliseum Theatre, advertisement, New York Clipper, 26 April 1879, 32. Milwaukee Theatre, advertisement, New York Clipper, 19 April 1879, 32. Olympic Theatre, advertisement, ibid. Hanners, It was Play, 98.

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minstrel troupes; pantomimes like Humpty Dumpty; variety acts like trick show dogs and magicians; original and pirated operettas, from Evangeline to Fantinitza; new versions of popular productions like Uncle Toms Cabin; and many other experimental performances.60 The most popular tour featured on the Midwestern circuit in early 1879 was H.M.S. Pinafore, a hit that had premiered the year prior at the Opra-Comique in London and grown wildly popular in the US due, in large part, to unsanctioned productions based on pirated copies of the libretto. By 1879, a plethora of bootlegged Pinafore productions circulated on Midwestern circuit, many of which incorporated other proto-vaudeville and popular entertainments to distinguish productions from others. There were H.M.S. Pinafore burlesques, all-child Pinafore troupes, and minstrel versions of Pinafore, among many other Pinafore spoofs and knock-offs.61 The myriad of Pinafore-inspired performances was endemic of the Midwestern theatrical zeitgeist during this period. In fact, the Midwestern touring circuit was a true mishmash of hybridity and innovation, with managers and artists trying just about any combination of popular entertainment in the hopes of bringing in crowds and making money. The talents offered by The Underground Railroad company fit in well with other touring groups in the region. Midwestern reviews of The Underground Railroad echo suggestions that audiences were open to different types of performance, but they also highlight audiences discernment regarding the different entertainments that stopped in their towns. In fact, Midwestern reviews of the play are quite mixed.62 Some were quite laudatory. For instance, one review from Racine, Wisconsin states, All went there expecting to see a good entertainment but they were not prepared for the rare treat that was in store for them. The entertainment was first class in every respect.63 Another from St. Paul,
60 Quincy Review, review of The Underground Railroad, 16 June 1879. Located in scrapbook, folder 11, Pauline Hopkins Archive, Fisk University Library, Nashville, TN; Dramatic, New York Clipper, 26 April 1879, 38-9; Richard Traubner, American Operetta, in Operetta: A Theatrical History (Routledge, 2003), 338-56; Amusements, The Daily Cairo Bulletin (Cairo, Ill.), 20 December 1879, 4; Amusement Notes, Daily Globe (St. Paul, MN), 6 June 1880, 4.

His Mud Scow Pinafore, advertisement, New York Clipper, 12 April 1879, 23; Carl Simpson and Ephraim Hammet Jones, Preface to H.M.S. Pinafore, by W. S. Gilbert and Sir Arthur Sullivan (Mineola, NY: Courier Dover Publications, 2002), vi-vii; Dramatic Notes, Ottawa Free Trader (Ottawa, IL), 15 November 1879, 5.
61

Waterloo Courier, Waterloo Courier, 7 May 1879, 1; Great Musical Extravaganza, Waterloo Courier, 30 April 1879; Mere Mentions, The Weekly Times (Cedar Rapids, IA), 8 May 1879.
62 63

Racine Review, Wisconsin Daily Herald, 29 March 1879.

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Minnesota offered, everyone went away more than pleased with the rich musical treat, and the Milwaukee Sentinel celebrated the unusually good vocal stylings of the performers, suggesting, the audience was liberal in its expression of approval.64 Many of these positive reviews highlight Sam Lucass contribution to the plays tour and celebrity status among audiences. If discussions found in the Little Globe (the goings-on and gossip section of the Atchisons main newspaper, The Globe) reflect Lucass behavior in other cities, it seems the performer embraced his celebrity amongst Midwestern audiences and worked tirelessly to endear himself and his new productions to these communities. In the days leading up to The Underground Railroad performance in Atchison, the sixth time we have been treated to the struggle for freedom, the Little Globe mentioned Lucas at least ten times over the course of two weeks surrounding the production.65 The paper documents his visit to the newspaper office, Lucass serenade of the papers office staff, his promise to sing his 1878 hit, My Grandfathers Clock during the performance of The Underground Railroad, and his purchases of a trunk full of Red Signal cigars at the towns dry goods store. These anecdotes reveal Lucass beloved status amongst the residents of Atchison and allude to the likelihood that Lucas played a similar celebrity role in other small Midwestern towns on the tour. The Atchison newspaper reports also suggest a fairly autonomous role for Lucas, implying that he handled some of the management duties for white manager Z. W. Sprague by interviewing with newspapers and supporting publicity efforts. Although audiences clearly loved Lucas, less celebratory reviews from the first tour also suggest that The Underground Railroad company was likely a bit out of their league in supporting Lucas. For example the Waterloo Courier cited a review that stated, Sam Lucas was immense . . . while the other members of the company exhibited an amount of training and culture that would be a credit to any organization before the public.66 By suggesting that Lucass performance was immense while the company
St. Paul Review, review of The Underground Railroad, St. Paul Dispatch, 19 April 1879; Milwaukee Theatre, advertisement, New York Clipper, 19 April 1879, 32.
65 Although records indicate The Underground Railroad stopped in Atchinson more than once, the reference to six performances likely refers to his performances of Out of Bondage as well (By Request). Those Who Are Under in The Little Globe, The Globe (Atchison), 15 May 1879; To Our Knowledge in The Little Globe, The Globe (Atchison), 15 May 1879; The Little Globe, The Globe (Atchison), 19 May 1879; The Little Globe, The Globe (Atchison), 20 May 1879; The Little Globe. The Globe (Atchison). 27 May 1879; Sam Lucas Whose Grandfather in The Little Globe, The Globe (Atchison), 12 May 1879.
66

64

Great Musical Extravaganza.

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exhibited a noncommittal amount of training, this review, while superficially laudatory, subtly alludes to a disparity between Lucas and his supporting companys talent. Reviews also indicate that performance expectations established by the Out of Bondage company challenged the cast of The Underground Railroad. In contrast to the aforementioned laudatory reviews from Racine, Saint Paul, and Milwaukee, many other reviews suggested that the company paled in comparison to both Lucas and the talents of the Hyers sisters, who participated in Out of Bondages tour less than a year earlier. For example, a review from Maquoketa, Iowa stated, the troupe are [sic] all colored and did well in their respective parts, but cant be put down for good support for Lucas.67 Another review asserted, Sam Lucas is as funny as ever, but his company cant sing like the Hyers sisters.68 Still another review offered, The troupe hardly averages with the Hyers sisters.69 These reviews reflect tension between Lucas, his less accomplished cast, and the expectations resultant from The Underground Railroads imitation of Out of Bondage. These disparate reviews reveal a more sophisticated critical reception of The Underground Railroad than previously understood. Unlike the limited and often disparaging reviews found in publications in the Northeast, the varied Midwestern reviews, from claims that the whole performance [was] first class and the company is deserving of the patronage it receives, to it is quite evident that Lucas has not got the best support, reveal an open-mindedness toward the production.70 Instead of systematically dismissing the production, or ignoring the work all together, Midwestern audiences receptiveness to experimental dramatic forms allowed for a variety of critical responses that acknowledged strengths of The Underground Railroad while fairly criticizing the productions shortcomings. These diverse reviews contribute to a more nuanced view of the productions value as a nascent genre navigating audience and critics expectations as it attempted to pave a way for new forms of performance. Conclusion Despite Lucass celebrity status, the play ran out of steam only a few months into its tour and abruptly closed after a performance in Aurora,
67 68 69 70

Underground Railroad, review, Jackson Sentinel (Maquoketa), 8 May 1879, 1. Little Globe, 20 May 1879. Local Brevities, Iowa State Reporter (Waterloo, IA), 7 May 1879.

Underground Railroad, review, The Wichita Eagle, 29 May 1879, 1; AmusementsThe Underground Railroad, review, Milwaukee Sentinel, 2 April 1879, 8; Waterloo Courier, Waterloo Corner, 7 May 1879, 1.

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Illinois on 20 June 1879. Reviews indicate that the performers scattered to Boston, Toronto, Chicago, and elsewhere.71 Before returning to work with Spragues Georgia Minstrels, Lucas returned to Boston and likely met with Hopkins to reflect on the tour. Hopkins responded by significantly revising the play, reducing the structure from four to three acts, removing the final scene in which the characters hint at struggles in regards to living as freedmen and women in the North and replacing it with a tableau of the characters escaping across a river on a raft and singing My Old Kentucky Homean ending undeniably evocative of Uncle Toms Cabin that avoided commentary regarding life after liberation.72 She also developed musical scores for the songs and changed the title from Peculiar Sam; Or, The Underground Railroad to Escape from Slavery.73 By taking the focus off Sams experiences, the new title further distanced Hopkinss narrative from the controversial issues subtly infused in the first version. This new revision made for an appropriate addition to the July Fourth festivities at Bostons Oakland Garden in 1880. Oakland Gardens management featured Hopkinss drama as part of a Grand Plantation Festival, a problematically nostalgic performance event that commemorated slavery through recreations of plantation life.74 In addition to Hopkinss authentic slave drama, the festival also featured interactive scenes in which African American performers simulated work in the cotton fields for white spectators, steamboat races between working simulations of the Robert E. Lee and Natchez, and a grand fireworks display.75 The 1880 production reunited Lucas, the only performer to participate in both the 1879 Midwestern tour and the Oakland Garden performance in Boston, with the famous Hyers sisters from Out of Bondage. Pauline Hopkins and her family also participated in the production, debuting their performance ensemble, The Hopkins Colored Troubadours. While Hopkinss participation in a plantation festival does not automatically imply resignation and conformity to white expectations of slave dramas, her revisions to the text and the decision to include the threeact version at the large-scale performance in 1880 suggest a certain level

71 Aurora Review, 25 June 1879. Scrapbook, inside back cover, folder 11, Pauline Hopkins Archive, Fisk University Library, Nashville, TN. 72

Hopkins, Slaves Escape.

73 AmusementsOakland Garden, newspaper clipping. Scrapbook, page 8, Folder 11, Pauline Hopkins Archive, Fisk University Library, Nashville, TN. 74 75

Ibid. Ibid.

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of compromise.76 By changing the ending of her play, Hopkins imposed self-censorship of the political commentary about the struggles of slaves in the North after they secured freedom via the Underground Railroad. This revision of the play conformed to dominant slave narratives like Out of Bondage and Uncle Toms Cabin and likely helped support the 1880 production of the play for Boston audiences. Since the new version offered no challenge to Northern audiences attitudes about the larger political implication of failed Reconstruction efforts or racial discrimination outside the South, the production appealed to Fourth of July audiences as a nostalgic dramatization of the past and as a reinforcement of the supposed political progressivism of the present. Perhaps this compromise contributed to Hopkinss move away from dramatic forms. Although Hopkins and her family toured various versions of The Underground Railroad throughout Boston and the Northeast during the first half of the 1880s, no evidence suggests that she copyrighted any additional plays after the 1880 performance in Boston. The only other dramatic writing in her archive, a skeletal outline of a play called Winona, lived on as a serialized novel Hopkins published in Colored American Magazine in 1902.77 Unfortunately, Hopkins never commented on her development of The Underground Railroad, but her move away from playwriting suggests that Hopkins herself viewed her work on this production as a kind of failure as well. Attending to The Underground Railroads first tour not only alters understandings of Hopkinss dramatic career, but it also reveals an evolution of marginalized theatre forms during the postbellum period. More prominent productions that followed The Underground Railroad, like The Creole Show, relied upon a synthesis of experimentation from countless and mostly nameless productions like Hopkinss play that made a go at something new in regards to performance. Tracing those productions and the ways in which they experimented with and hybridized popular theatre forms supports new understandings of the complicated and arduous tasks associated with carving out a space for new performance genres that challenged minstrelsys rigid and racist structures. Placing Pauline Hopkinss play in conversation with contemporaneous productions suggests that her brief dramatic career may have been more than an experimental phase that she ultimately left behind. Instead, it was an important period in Hopkinss
76 For a thorough and nuanced reading of Plantation Performances, see Barbara Webbs Authentic Possibilities: Plantation Performance of the 1890s, Theatre Journal 56 (2004): 63-82.

Pauline Hopkins, Winona, folder 5, Pauline Hopkins Archive, Fisk University Library, Nashville, TN; Pauline Hopkins, The Magazine Novels of Pauline Hopkins: (Including Hagars Daughter, Winona, and Of One Blood) (Oxford University Press, 1990).
77

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life in which explored ideas that would later become the significant social commentary articulated in her later works like Contending Forces and Of One Blood. As this discussion of Hopkins demonstrates, more studies of theatrical experimentation in African American theatre history adds complexity and nuance to genealogies of US performance, particularly in regards to those who worked diligently from below to generate incremental change through trial and error. Carefully examining these marginalized theatre forms respects and illuminates the experiences of artists who worked both within and outside dominance while acknowledging the forces of oppression that pushed against artistic, ideological, or political change. In looking at productions like The Underground Railroad, the opportunity not only exists to rehabilitate histories of marginalized performers who attempted to act from below, but it also becomes possible to engage in the important task of weaving together histories of marginalization with histories of dominance. By carefully considering the incompletely forgotten remnants of theatre and performance rejected by those who dictated taste and value, we can more fully acknowledge that histories surface from complex, painful, extraordinary, and even mundane struggles amongst a variety of individuals for a myriad of reasons. Weaving together these struggles creates more complete and complex histories that represent the multiplicities of influence involved in the retelling and reimagining of the past. Appendix A Chronology of The Underground Railroad Performances This appendix provides the most up-to-date chronology of The Underground Railroad. Dates have been gleaned from reviews found in Hopkinss scrapbook, advertisements in the New York Clipper, other newspapers, and other scholars investigations of Hopkinss life. March 1879 14 - Ottawa, Illinois 15 - Ottawa, Illinois 23 - Rockford, Illinois 26 - Freeport, Illinois 27 - Racine, Wisconsin 31 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Grand Opening) April 1879 1 - Milwaukee, Wisconsin

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5 - Oshkosh, Wisconsin 17 - Farihaut, Minnesota 18 - St. Paul, Minnesota 19 - St. Paul, Minnesota 20 - St. Paul, Minnesota 21 - Stillwater, Minnesota 22 - Minneapolis, Minnesota 23 - Mankato, Minnesota 24 - Rochester, Minnesota 25 - Faribault, Minnesota 26 - Minneapolis, Minnesota 28 - Owatonna, Minnesota 29 - Austin, Minnesota 30 - Waverly, Minnesota May 1879 1 -Dubuque, Iowa 2 - Dubuque, Iowa 3 - Waterloo, Iowa 5 - Clinton, Iowa 6 - Maquoketa, Iowa 8 - Cedar Rapids, Iowa 10 - Des Moines, Iowa 18 - Lawrence, Kansas 19 - Atchison, Kansas 21 - Lawrence, Kansas 27 - Atchison, Kansas 31 - Wichita, Kansas June 1879 1 - Wichita, Kansas 12 - Quincy, Illinois 13 - Quincy, Illinois 15 - Quincy, Illinois 17 - Galesburg, Illinois 20 - Aurora, Illinois (end of tour)