Samuel Sanguin Sanford

Popularity is often measured by the amount of coverage given in the media of the day. In the favorite medium of the mid-19th century, newspapers, the name of Sam Sanford appeared hundreds of times as he traveled the northeastern part of the country.

He was born and died in New York City but most of his life was based in Philadelphia. No date was found for his first marriage but a son was born in New York in 1843, so Sam’s wife would have been about 17. A daughter was born in Philly in 1850. One year after his wife died in 1862 he remarried and had another son.

Sam developed his fondness for the footlights starting at age 12 as part of his uncle’s traveling stage show. He performed as a clown and comic singer in Reading and Allentown, Pennsylvania but in 1843 he started on his career as a minstrel. In the 1800s the term described a white actor performing in makeup as a black person using racial stereotypes in a patronizing manner. 

1840s: The minstrel profession

These ”blackface” variety shows would be offensive by today’s standards but the comic skits, singing, and dancing appealed to working-class Northern whites of that time. For those who felt looked down upon by the upper class, they had another group to whom they felt superior.

The “nativist” movement was also taking hold, with open bias against immigrants, especially Catholics and the Irish. Minstrels, however, saw no risk in denigrating a different culture that wouldn’t push back. They eventually paved the way for burlesque, offering a variety of simple amusements in contrast to serious productions like dramas and operas.

As disco music was a brief but big money-maker for the music industry in the late 1970s, so was the minstrel show in the entertainment field during the mid-1800s. Sam rode the wave to great wealth in the 1840s, even taking his troupe of seven performers to England and Europe in 1845-46. There he was met and complimented by author Charles Dickens.

With his popularity and his bank account soaring, he played regularly at the Chestnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia. His show went on the road for several years, from Boston to Baltimore. Returning in 1857, he packed the old City Hall at 8th and Chestnut for three weeks, then took ownership of a hall on 11th Street which he named Sanford’s Opera House.

1850s: The abolitionist novel

Meanwhile, Harriet Beecher Stowe wrote Uncle Tom’s Cabin, which became the bestselling novel of the 19th century but was roundly attacked in the South for its abolitionist message. It soon spawned stage productions based on the book. None of those “Tom Shows” were authorized by Mrs. Stowe and only a few, including Sam’s, stayed faithful to the original book. He played him as a “mulatto,” wearing brown makeup instead of blackface.

Some of his obituaries incorrectly claim Sam was the first actor to play the title character. He was actually the fifth, but arguably the most popular. By the time of his retirement, he was also the oldest. Later in life he told reporters he had several conversations with Mrs. Stowe and her famous brother, Rev. Henry Ward Beecher, about how he should best portray the character of Uncle Tom.

1860s: The Highs and Lows

Entertainment was a needed diversion during the war, so theaters in the northern states enjoyed a steady business. These clippings attest to his great fan base in Pittsburgh. The same was true in the other major cities in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Connecticut, and Massachusetts where newspapers reported large audiences. 

In the midst of Sam’s success in 1862 came the death of his wife, Lurissa. He found Annie Bond and married her seven months later to help parent his teenage daughter, Julia. Nine months later they added a son to the family named Walter.

Newspaper editor Horace Greeley said, “Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings.” Sam was about to learn that it usually leaves faster than it arrives. He established a minstrel hall in Harrisburg in 1861, selling the one he owned in Philadelphia. With the election of 1864 approaching, he made a substantial wager with someone that the Democratic candidate and former general, George B. McClellan of Philadelphia, would be the next U.S. President. 

The mood of the country was on his side that summer, but Union victories in the fall helped swing support to Lincoln, the incumbent president. Sam lost $21,000 and his Harrisburg theater. He had to start over, and advertised his shows to dispel the rumor that he was knocked down and out. For a time in 1868 he even worked as a circus clown to make ends meet.

The “Tom Show” years

Realizing he could make more money in a black face than a white one, Sam was ready to try again. In 1870 he bought the former Dutch Reformed Church building at 2nd & Poplar Streets in Philly and transformed it into Sanford Hall. Eleven months later he was able to pay off almost all his debts. 

Only one, the insurance premium on the building, was overdue and had lapsed. One night he went to bed, prepared to go pay the premium the next day, but that very night the hall burned down, a total loss. So Sam went back on the road again with grit and determination, as shown by these reviews.

This was the decade he became famous for his Tom shows. The audiences welcomed him in all his former venues in the state as well as New York, Baltimore, and Washington, D.C.

As he approached the age of 60 the bookings were predominantly in rural towns like Chambersburg, Shrewsbury, Sunbury, and Smyrna, Delaware, and were billed as “Sam Sanford’s Old Time Minstrels.” At the same time, he continued to produce his Tom shows into the late 1880s.

The theatrical community lost a famous Shakespearean actor in 1885 when John McCullough died. An immense monument was erected at Mount Moriah in 1888 for the Philadelphia native that included a bronze bust costing $2200 (or 33 times that much today). Sam was invited to attend the unveiling and was one of 30 representing the Philadelphia Elks Lodge. (The Elks were originally founded for the welfare of theater people which is why so many actors are buried in Elks plots.) Sam certainly had great respect for the actor and the serious roles he played. One of which even put John McCullough in black makeup for the title character in Shakespeare’s Othello.

In 1887 Sam’s son, Walter, created his own company of actors to perform the play “Under the Lash.” After success in several towns like Lancaster, Hazelton, and Wilkes-Barre, they brought it to Philadelphia. Walter had the lead but got his father’s support (and name recognition) by putting him in a supporting role for a while.

Sam took on the title of business manager for Walter’s company of actors, then returned to theaters in Maryland and Norfolk in the temperance drama, Ten Nights in a Bar Room, garnering this important endorsement. The 1889 performances of Uncle Tom’s Cabin were Sam’s last, having staged it more than 3700 times. 

 The Later Years

A special one-time event was put together on February 16, 1893. Sam booked the Chestnut Street Opera House in Philly to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the minstrel show. He wasn’t in the first troupe that staged a show in 1843 (a claim made by either the Virginia Minstrels or the Christy Minstrels), but he used the occasion to also mark his 50 years in blackface. Many of his minstrel friends joined in the reunion.

The years after that slowed him down but newspapers continued to record his appearances, making comments like this about his stamina. He outlived many of his fellow minstrels and was pall-bearer in 1898 to a former member of his troupe in 1860, a fellow Philadelphian and lodge brother, Frank Moran.

His mother, Mary Sanford Coats, celebrated her 100th birthday on May 18, 1899 but she only lived 19 days after that. She was the only relative of Sam’s to be buried at Mount Moriah, and her story can be found here. She had hoped to live for the rest of the year because Sam announced he would retire after a final show on November 17. He went out with a bang, just as he had planned.

About a year later the Sanfords moved to Brooklyn to live with Walter’s family. Sam suffered a stroke and never recovered, leaving his earthly life two days before his 85th birthday. The Elks and Masons took care of his funeral and burial here. His wife died four months later. Walter continued his career as a playwright and actor in Hollywood until his death in 1930.