ABSTRACT Title of Dissertation: THE PHENOMENOLOGY OF ...

committed suicide more than a decade earlier, and the popularity of the original Christy
Minstrels was threatened by a number of other companies, many of which used the
“Christy” name as a generic term for the style of performance. At the same time,
minstrelsy in general was expanding at an impressive rate (despite a brief downturn
during the panic of 1873-1874), black troupes were forming, and dozens of companies
were rising and falling in the annals of minstrel shows. By promising a genuine Christy
Minstrel show format, it seems Bullock was simultaneously being ironic (since these
were marionette performances) and trying to compete by promising the originals.
Bullock’s tenure in the United States was brief. It was also unusually profitable,
the monthly intake being about six thousand dollars, a remarkable sum in the 1870s. By
June of 1874, he had passed the control of his American performances permanently over
to partners John E. McDonough and Hartley A. Earnshaw. Interestingly, Bullock trusted
the two with the Royal Marionette enterprise, despite having sued them over breaches of
contract in mid-February. McPharlin speculates that Bullock was simply being a good
businessman, and avoiding the difficult position of possibly having to compete with his
own former puppeteers. 69 In the coming years, the McDonough and Earnshaw Royal
Marionettes and their student, Daniel Meander, with his own Royal Marionette company,
would play throughout the United States, even appearing briefly in Hawaii.
And so concludes the oddly circuitous cultural exchange that initially brought
blackface to the puppet theatre. The contradictory aesthetics of Bullock’s Royal
Marionettes began a lengthy tradition of blackface puppetry in the United States,
69
Paul McPharlin, The Puppet Theatre in America: A History, 1524-1948 (New York: Plays Inc,
1949), 183.
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