Information Sheet
R Draper, Arthur Clinton, 1872-1944.
847 Photograph collection, ca. 1890-1935.
Nine
folders.
These
are the photographs of Arthur Clinton Draper, a producer of minstrel shows. Draper produced minstrel shows in the central
and western states for over thirty years, specializing in benefit performances
at Elks lodges.
Clint
Draper was born in Oswego, Kansas, in 1872. His
mother was a music teacher who had moved there from the east, and his father
was a physician who had relatives living near Lebanon, Missouri. Draper was
reared in Oswego, after which he moved to Colorado Springs, Colorado, where for twelve years he was a partner in Carpenter
and Draper, a retail grocery business. He
was well-known as an amateur entertainer, and was a member of the Colorado
Springs Opera House orchestra and the Centennial State Band.
Draper's
break into professional entertaining came when he accepted an invitation to
join Haverly’s Mastodon Minstrels, a popular troupe then playing Colorado Springs. He performed
with Haverly’s only briefly before going into business in 1900 with Harry
Miller of Paris, Texas, a producer of minstrel shows. Miller and Draper produced shows with local
amateur performers, contracting to provide all scenery, props, costumes, songs,
special acts, and music. They helped
with advertising and publicity, and bore responsibility for rehearsals and
final stage production. The sponsoring
organization provided the theater, a pianist for rehearsals, a carpenter to
build props and scenery, and local talent for the shows.
Miller
and Draper specialized in benefit performances with the Benevolent and
Protective Order of Elks. Although they
contracted with similar organizations, most of their shows were staged under
the auspices of the B.P.O.E. Working
with groups such as the Elks assured the producers of a ready pool of amateurs
for “burnt cork” performances. Miller
and Draper produced shows from New York to the Pacific, playing some towns year after year. When Miller and Draper dissolved the
partnership in 1920, Miller took the eastern part of the territory and Draper
the western part.
Draper
continued producing benefit shows through the mid-1930s, one of the last being
staged in his adopted home town of Lebanon. He lived briefly
in Grand Island, Nebraska, in 1935-1936, where he was director of membership
activities of the Elks lodge. Ultimately
he retired to his farm near Lebanon, where he died in 1944. The Lebanon newspaper referred to Draper as one of the last “top-flight
minstrels.”
The Draper
photograph collection complements the correspondence, scrapbooks, advertising
materials, scripts, and ephemera previously microfilmed as WHMC-Rolla
Collection R112. There are one
hundred
eight professionally-produced views, nearly all of which illustrate Draper’s
career as a minstrel performer and producer of minstrel shows. The earliest views show the Carpenter &
Draper grocery store in Colorado Springs, Colorado. All of the
other photographs show Draper and other blackface performers in various
costumes, in parades, and on stage.
Included are views of Draper in his Centennial State Band uniform, with
Haverly’s Mastodon Minstrels, and with Wynn Jones of Draper & Jones. The partnership with Harry Miller is well
represented, as is the longtime association with the Elks. A significant number of views are group photos
of the casts of various minstrel shows.
Not all of the locations are known.
Of those that are identified, the locations include Fresno and Santa
Cruz, California; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Des Moines, Iowa; Pittsburg, Kansas;
Joplin, Missouri; Helena, Montana; Grand Island and McCook, Nebraska; Mount
Vernon and Syracuse, New York; Bismarck, North Dakota; Shawnee, Oklahoma; and
Warren, Pennsylvania. Folder 9 contains
photographs inscribed to Clint Draper from fellow entertainers Harry Gorson
Clarke, Jack Cullen, George and John Gorman, and “Tiny” Jones.
Shelf
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