The history of African Americans in America is complicated. Art, as part of cultural identities for all human beings, is especially important to African Americans, whose unique culture in America has not always provided institutional platforms for self-definition. As jazz music became an element of American popular culture in the 20th century, systemic and institutional racism persisted.
This article delves into the intertwined narratives of African American jazz figurines, the Harlem Renaissance, and the controversial figure of the golliwog, exploring themes of cultural representation, racism, and artistic expression.
James Van Der Zee, Garveyite Family, Harlem, 1924
The Harlem Renaissance: A Flourishing of Black Art and Identity
The Harlem Renaissance was a period of rich cross-disciplinary artistic and cultural activity among African Americans between the end of World War I (1917) and the onset of the Great Depression and lead up to World War II (the 1930s). Artists associated with the movement asserted pride in black life and identity, a rising consciousness of inequality and discrimination, and interest in the rapidly changing modern world-many experiencing a freedom of expression through the arts for the first time.
The formation of new African American creative communities was engendered in part by the Great Migration-the largest resettlement of Americans in the history of the continental United States, mainly from rural Southern regions to more populous urban centers in the North. Pursuit of jobs, better education, and housing-as well as escape from Jim Crow laws and a life constrained by institutionalized racism-drove black Americans to relocate.
Read also: Experience Fad's Fine African Cuisine
Aaron Douglas, Aspects of Negro Life Panel 1
While the Harlem Renaissance may be best known for its literary and performing arts-pioneering figures such as Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Duke Ellington, and Ma Rainey may be familiar-sculptors, painters, and printmakers were key contributors to the first modern Afrocentric cultural movement and formed a black avant-garde in the visual arts.
Aaron Douglas (1899-1979) is known as the “father of African American art.” He defined a modern visual language that represented black Americans in a new light. Douglas began his artistic career as a landscape painter but was influenced by modern art movements such as cubism, in which subjects appear fragmented and fractured, and by the graphic arts, which typically use bold colors and stylized forms. He and other artists also looked toward West Africa for inspiration, making personal connections to the stylized masks and sculpture from Benin, Congo, and Senegal, which they viewed as a link to their African heritage. They also turned to the art of antiquity, such as Egyptian sculptural reliefs, of popular interest due to the 1922 discovery of King Tutankhamen’s tomb. Printmakers James Lesesne Wells (1902-1993) and Hale Woodruff (1900-1980) also explored a streamlined approach that drew from African and European artistic influences.
Sculptor Richmond Barthé (1901-1989) worked in a realistic style, representing his subjects in a nuanced and sympathetic light in which black Americans had seldom been depicted before. Painter Archibald John Motley Jr. (1891-1981) began his career during the 1920s as one of the first African American graduates of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. In the early part of his career, he created intimate and direct portraits, such as Portrait of My Grandmother of 1922.
James Van Der Zee (1886-1983), a photographer, became the unofficial chronicler of African American life in Harlem. Whether through formal, posed family photographs in his studio or through photo essays of Harlem’s cabarets, restaurants, barbershops, and church services, his large body of work documents a growing, diverse, and thriving community.
Read also: The Story Behind Cachapas
Gospel, jazz, and blues music, developed by artists of the African diaspora, was a central feature of the Harlem Renaissance. Aaron Douglas often depicted musical instruments and people dancing in his art.
Jazz in Seattle: The Jackson Street Jazz District
The Great Migration witnessed six million African Americans leaving the Jim Crow South for cities in the northern and western United States. Seattle became a prominent destination for African American migration and one of the jazz epicenters in the early 20th century.
The Jackson Street Jazz District (which encompassed 5th to 15th avenue, between Jackson Street and Yesler Way) was Seattle’s primary jazz ecosystem, incorporating jazz performance and supporting economy via hotels and nightclubs. One of the first jazz clubs was the Alhambra Cabaret, named in tribute to the Alhambra palace in Granada, Spain (also known as The Red One for its reddish walls). The African American business ownership of entrepreneurs like Russell “Noodles” Smith established the Jackson Street Jazz district as an important economic and artistic zone for the nurturing of Seattle jazz artists and developing audiences. Located in a cultural pluralistic neighborhood, the Jackson Street Jazz District was a result of the city’s red-lining housing statues, but despite that, it was ideally located near Seattle’s two main train stations in downtown Seattle.
Jazz has flourished in Seattle for over one hundred years. The Jackson Street Jazz District no longer exists, however, its musical influence on the city is still relevant and present today. Likewise, the institutional status of jazz has risen from its humble beginnings.
Seattle's Jazz Scene - Routed in History
The Golliwog: A Racist Caricature
The golliwog, also spelled golliwogg or shortened to golly, is a doll-like character, created by cartoonist and author Florence Kate Upton, which appeared in children's books in the late 19th century, usually depicted as a type of rag doll. The golliwog is controversial, being widely considered a racist caricature of black people, alongside pickaninnies, minstrels, and mammy figures. The doll is characterised by jet black skin, eyes rimmed in white, exaggerated red lips and frizzy hair, based on the blackface minstrel tradition. Since the 20th century, the word "golliwog" has been considered a racial slur towards black people.
Read also: Techniques of African Jewellery
Florence Kate Upton was born in 1873 in Flushing, New York, United States, the daughter of English parents who had emigrated to the United States three years previously. Following the death of her father, she moved back to England with her mother and sisters when she was fourteen. There she spent several years drawing and developing her artistic skills. To afford tuition at art school, she illustrated a children's book entitled The Adventures of Two Dutch Dolls and a Golliwogg. The 1895 book included a character named the Golliwogg, who was first described as "a horrid sight, the blackest gnome", but who quickly turned out to be a friendly character, and is later attributed with a "kind face." A product of the blackface minstrel tradition, the Golliwogg had jet black skin, bright red lips, and wild woolly hair.
Upton's book and its many sequels were extremely successful in England, largely because of the popularity of the Golliwogg. Upton did not trademark her character, and its name, spelt "golliwog", became the generic name for dolls and images of a similar type. Upton's Golliwogg was jovial, friendly and gallant, but some later golliwogs were sinister or menacing characters. For instance, a number of Enid Blyton's Noddy and Big Ears books feature Golliwog, sometimes as heroes but often as a villain or as naughty individuals. Other authors took a similar tack.
In the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, South Africa and parts of Europe, in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, the golliwog character became popular in the form of children's literature, dolls, children's ceramics and other toys, ladies' perfume, and jewellery. While the first golliwog dolls were mostly self-made by parents for their children, in the early 20th century industrial production of golliwog plush dolls began.
Golliwogg and Dutch Dolls
Controversies and Changing Attitudes
Changing political attitudes with regard to race have reduced the popularity and sales of golliwogs as toys. Manufacturers who have used golliwogs as a motif (e.g. Robertson's marmalade in the UK) have either withdrawn them as an icon or changed the name. British jam manufacturer James Robertson & Sons used a golliwog called Golly as its mascot from 1910, after John Robertson apparently saw children playing with golliwog dolls in the United States. Robertson's started producing promotional Golly badges in the 1920s, which could be obtained in exchange for tokens gained from their products. By the 1950s, the firm had incorporated the figure into the advertising campaign for its jams with the slogan "Golly!
The name "golliwog" came to be used as a degrading term for anyone who was not white-skinned, and new origins were suggested for the word. According to a 2013 editorial in The Times, golliwogs were designed to reflect a racist stereotype that treated black men as an object of ridicule, and perpetuated racial prejudice by introducing this stereotype to children. They were the second most popular children's toy in Europe in the first half of the 20th century, after the teddy bear.
In recent years, the golliwog has continued to spark controversy:
- In March 2007, Greater Manchester Police seized two golliwogs from a shop after a complaint that the dolls were offensive.
- In February 2009, Carol Thatcher, the daughter of former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, referred to the black French tennis player Jo-Wilfried Tsonga as looking like a golliwog, leading to her dismissal from the BBC.
- In April 2023, Essex Police removed several golliwog dolls displayed in a pub in response to an alleged hate crime.
African American Jazz Figurines
Objects depicting racist and/or stereotypical imagery or language may be offensive and disturbing, but the NMAAHC aims to include them in the Collection to present and preserve the historical context in which they were created and used.
Consider the following examples of African American jazz figurines:
| Figurine Description | Dimensions (H x W x D) |
|---|---|
| Caricatured male musician playing the clarinet, wearing a black suit, white shirt, and red lips. The clarinet is painted gold. | 2 15/16 × 1 15/16 × 1 1/2 in. |
| Caricatured male musician playing the saxophone, wearing a black suit, white shirt, and red lips. The saxophone is painted gold. | 2 3/4 × 1 7/16 × 1 1/2 in. |
| Caricatured male musician playing a drum, wearing a black suit, white shirt, and red lips. The drum and mallets are painted gold. | 2 3/4 × 1 11/16 × 1 3/4 in. |
| Caricatured male musician playing the trumpet, wearing a black suit, white shirt, and red lips. The trumpet is painted gold. | 2 3/4 × 1 5/8 × 1 1/8 in. |
| Caricatured male musician playing the banjo, wearing a black suit, white shirt, red lips, and white teeth. The banjo is painted gold. | 2 11/16 × 1 3/4 × 1 1/2 in. |
These figurines, while seemingly innocuous, can carry the weight of historical stereotypes and caricatures, reflecting the complex and often contradictory ways in which African Americans have been represented in popular culture.
