Whitewashing Blackface and Whistling Dixie : The Commemoration of Dan Emmett

Embracing Emmett and Dixie in the Postwar Era

Up until the 1930s, commemoration of Dan Emmett by local residents of Mount Vernon hadn’t extended past the Mound View cemetery, where in 1925 a local branch of the American Legion replaced the crumbling marker at Dan Emmett’s grave. But over  the next fifty years—and especially in the three decades after World War II—the city of Mount Vernon would come to embrace Emmett and "Dixie" with a new enthusiasm. Indeed, it’s not too much to suggest that residents of Mount Vernon decided to construct their own civic identity around the fact that Dan Emmett, composer of "Dixie," had been born and died there. 

Some of this new commemorative zeal no doubt reflected the success of Confederate heritage groups in holding up Emmett as a kind of American hero. When the Curtis Hotel, a grand jewel that was located on Mount Vernon’s main square, renamed their restaurant the Dan Emmett Grill in 1934, it probably had something to do with the renewed attention brought to Emmett and "Dixie" by the various memorial campaigns spearheaded by the United Daughters of the Confederacy. The menu for the Dan Emmett Grill featured a drawing of Emmett superimposed over the sheet music for "Dixie" and customers could order a “Scarlet O’Hara” cocktail in the bar. 

Nor did Confederate heritage groups give up their quest to see more public memorialization of Emmett and "Dixie," even in the wake of the failed 1935 campaign to build a National 'Dixie' Memorial. When the Ohio Sesquicentennial Commission announced a new program in 1951 to celebrate Ohio history by placing historic markers at community corporate limits, the Sons of the Confederacy were quick to advocate for honoring Dan Emmett and "Dixie" at the borders of Mount Vernon. That Ohio-shaped marker honoring Emmett that first piqued my interest when I drove past it every day, in other words, existed due to the advocacy of a Confederate heritage organization. 

The naming of the restaurant at the Curtis Hotel marked the beginning of a new stage of Emmett commemoration in Mount Vernon as the city and its residents began to construct their civic identity--their sense of what made Mount Vernon distinctive--around being the hometown of the composer of "Dixie." In 1940, a new local branch of the Grange, the national organization for farmers, named itself after Dan Emmett and built the Monroe-Dan Emmett Grange Meeting Hall near where Dan Emmett's retirement cottage once stood. In 1941, a second business in Mount Vernon chose to commemorate Emmett when H. Ogden Wintermute opened "Dixie Antiques" in a downtown storefront. And city leaders soon jumped on the bandwagon. In 1951, when the Board of Education decided to build a new elementary school in Dan Emmett's old neighborhood, they named it in his honor; the baseball field built next to the school became Dan Emmett Park. By the late 1950s, traces of Emmett and his famous song were everywhere. Three different streets in Mount Vernon were named for Emmett or "Dixie" in the late 1950s. In 1956, "a group of dog fanciers who had a vision for the city of Mount Vernon, OH and the surrounding area" founded the Dan Emmett Kennel Club. Emmett's childhood home was saved and briefly converted into a house museum. The city was home to the Dan Emmett Toastmaster's Club. And the city had begun celebrating "Dixie Days," a summer sidewalk sale that would eventually become an annual arts and music festival. 

Even the local telephone directory reflected this  move to make Emmett a cornerstone of Mount Vernon's civic identity. Beginning in 1952 and reappearing every year until 1992, the front matter in the Polk Directory described Mount Vernon as "honored in the history of America's national music, being the birthplace of Daniel Decatur Emmett, immortal as the author and composer of "Dixie," that song beloved of the Southland and now one of the national songs of a reunited people." Emmett's grave, the directory explained, had become "a shrine for all who honor and revere his memory."  And perhaps nothing better demonstrates the ways in which Mount Vernon itself became something of a "shrine" to Emmett and "Dixie" than the patch worn on the uniform of every member of the Mount Vernon City Police Department. Those patches, which managed to include Emmett's birth and death years, a reference to Dixie, and a picture of his retirement cabin, suggests the depth of the connection between Emmett, "Dixie" and the civic identity of Mount Vernon. 
How to explain this full-throated embrace of Dan Emmett and "Dixie"? By the 1950s, a romantic image of Dan Emmett had emerged that highlighted traits that the rural residents of Knox County seemed eager to emulate: he was a humble man who didn't put on airs, someone who was gentle, kind, and didn't care if he appeared a bit eccentric. Speaking at "Dixie Days" in 1959, Knox County's U.S. Congressman praised Emmett's simplicity, gentleness and "lack of affectation" as "the true mark of greatness," traits, Representative Robert Levering argued, that Emmett shared with Jesus of Nazareth, Saint Francis of Assisi, Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle. Quite exalted company for Mount Vernon's local son. Levering, who thought "Dixie" was "one of the most beloved songs ever to be written in the United States," unsuccessfully lobbied for the post office to issue a stamp honoring Emmett during his one term in office. 

There's no doubt that Emmett was the most famous person from Mount Vernon, but his very fame reflected the depth of racism in American culture. Mount Vernon did not stand out in the postwar era for celebrating a blackface minstrel performer or his music. Indeed there is evidence that members of Mount Vernon's small black community participated in the annual celebrations. In 1959, one young Black Mount Vernon woman vied with five others for the title of "Dixie Days Queen." 


Emmett even had a bit of a heyday in mid-century America. In 1942, Emmett's story got the Hollywood treatment when Sony pictures released the film, "Dixie." Starring Bing Crosby as Emmett, the film told a highly fictionalized version of Emmett's life story, much of which seemed an excuse to showcase a lengthy minstrel show performed in blackface. The movie's blackface scenes are excruciating today in part because they highlight whites' willingness to accept and circulate such demeaning stereotypical depictions of blacks. But in 1943, these depictions didn't seem to raise an eyebrow. When Life magazine ran a story about the film, they not only included several still pictures of the blackface scenes but reprinted a version of "Dixie" that included the verse about "darkies" growing in Dixieland if "white folks only plant dar toe."

In the decade after World War II, in short, it was uncomplicated for Mount Vernon residents to construct their identity around a blackface performer or a song associated with the cause of the Confederacy. And soon, these early civic commemorations would give rise to organized heritage tourism campaigns, as Mount Vernon city boosters decided that Emmett and "Dixie" offered excellent material to market Mount Vernon to the outside world.

Trailer for the 1943 Paramount film, Dixie

 

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