These included songs from one of the principal ways songs traveled from town to town: itinerant minstrel shows – white professional musicians, dressed in blackface, who danced and performed ...

Now, looking over firth and fauld, Her horn the pale-fac'd Cynthia rear'd, When, lo, in form of Minstrel auld, A stern and stalwart ghaist appear'd. And frae his harp sic strains did flow ...

Jackson's performance, in silhouette, reveals the excitement, novelty, and energy of performances that brought enormous audiences to minstrel shows in Foster's day.