The Great McKanlass
Note: In order to accurately reflect the racism that was common in newspaper articles during the time of this portrait, I chose to retain some language that is now considered highly offensive. This is part of a series of people who are not in my family tree, but their stories are fascinating. Completely forgotten today, they deserve a remembrance.
An 1887 ad in the Modesto Bee for William H.W. McKanlass' Show
Then came the great McKanlass, who is one of the best musicians and talented comedians that it has ever been our pleasure to see. This gentleman plays on a dozen instruments and handles them all with skill. He was brought back a half a dozen times and captured the house with his delightful music and gleeful dancing. He is truly a musical wonder. Albuquerque Morning Democrat, February 1891.
He was a black man in the nineteenth century who had the effrontery to call himself the greatest. He had the audacity to show, not hide, his confidence in himself. He had the gall to expect to attend his graduation ceremony from the College of Music of Cincinnati, even though he was the only black student.
William H. McKanlass was probably born into slavery to a mother who never learned to read or write. Yet he attended college and music school. It is claimed that he was the first black music teacher in the Cincinnati public schools, and he probably was. For thirty years he trod the boards of small-town opera houses, schoolrooms and tent shows, performing before thousands of people. He was a proud man who gave the audience what they wanted: the minstrel shows and coon songs that were the top entertainment in his era.
He said he toured Australia twice, that he at times made $1,000 a week, that he had his own private Pullman car and was the first black performer to tour in his own automobile. None of this was true.
He was an unquestionably gifted musician. He wasn’t a perfect man, and he had his struggles. Newspapers both raved over and panned his act. More than a few times he was one step ahead of a bill collector. He faced the open and casual racism of his time, and dared to defend himself.
Census records say that Will was born in Arkansas and alternately, Indiana Territory in 1858, his mother from Tennessee and his father from Pennsylvania. He was identified on the census as “mulatto.” He was described in newspapers as a light-skinned mulatto; that he could “pass himself off as a Spaniard.”
Nothing is known of his childhood or his father. In 1903 he told a crowd before a show that he was born enslaved by the Cherokee. He grew up in Junction City, Kansas, a town founded by Free Staters connected to the Massachusetts Emigrant Aid Company. There his mother Lucinda “Lucy” Price supported them as a washwoman. The schools were segregated, but he did well and went off to Kansas State Agricultural College in the fall of 1875, along with Willoughby Young, the top student in the “colored” school. Tuition was free, but students had to find a way to pay for books, room and board. There were jobs on campus and in the community.
Prior to the Morrill Act, which created land-grant colleges, college was for a tiny elite. Coursework was unchangeable - Greek, Latin, mental philosophy, moral philosophy, evidences of Christianity, math and physics. It was designed for the few who would be gentlemen - doctors, lawyers, ministers. But industrialization, immigration and urbanization dramatically changed American life. Land-grant colleges were part of that change. They were to focus on teaching what was practical - engineering, agriculture, science and military science, and for girls, subjects that would later be called home economics.
The president of Kansas State during Will and Willoughby’s time there was John A. Anderson, who had been a Presbyterian minister in Junction City. He radically changed the college to a manual trade school. He promised “less superfluous bosh.” The school was for “boys and girls who have to make a living,” not rich men’s children. Will and Willoughby could choose between two courses of study: farming or mechanical.
Although Kansas State was not a black school, this was the kind of higher education Booker T. Washington would espouse for blacks during his career. It is what most people were willing to support if they supported higher education for blacks at all. Decades later, Will spoke against this. Blacks should not be limited only to manual labor, he said, but should be able to do whatever they wanted to do.
Barbershop Days
Of the tiny minority that attended college, even fewer actually graduated. The Kansas State Class of 1875, for example, had only two graduates. There were five in the Class of 1876. To have the experience of attending college for a year, even a semester, set one apart. Will completed nearly two years before the Manhattan Enterprise announced in March 1877 that W.W. McKanlass, “our new barber, gave us the best shave we’ve had in many a day.”
How did Will learn to be a barber, and find the means to set himself up in business at age 19? Willoughby’s father was a barber in Junction City. Maybe he gave him some help. Will advertised faithfully in the Manhattan newspapers - get shaved, shingled and shampooed at McKanlass’ Barber Shop. He improved his shop and the services he offered as time went on. One paper called him “one of the best barbers in the west.” In March 1878 he moved to a new building formerly occupied by a drug store, painting and wallpapering the building. He added “new and handsome” furniture, had the walls “ornamented” with fine pictures, and added a billiard table. Now, the paper said, it was a “boss” barber shop. He did well enough that he employed another barber. Later, he offered hot and cold baths, something once common at barber shops. Cowboys and farm hands would come into town for a bath and a shave, then have a night out on the town.
The same year he opened his barber shop, he married Susan “Susie” Griffin. Susie had an interesting family history. She and her parents were all enslaved in Pulaski County, Kentucky. Her mother Malinda, had two children with Craig Buster, also known as Craig Bruster. They considered themselves married, but of course there was no legal marriage for enslaved people. Craig was sold to a man in Missouri, and Malinda “married” Sonny Griffin. She had seven children with him, including Susan, before Sonny died around the start of the Civil War. Meanwhile, in Missouri, Craig joined the Union Army. When the war was over, he returned to Pulaski County searching for his family. Malinda and Craig were finally legally married in March 1866 and had two more children.
Around 1870 they moved to Junction City, along with Craig’s mother Clarissa Harris. Three or four years later, Craig and Malinda moved to the Bacon Creek area outside of Lincoln, Kansas in Lincoln County, where there was a black community of about 60 people at its peak. Craig homesteaded and became a respected farmer. Susie stayed with her step-grandmother Clarissa and several of her siblings in Junction City.
There was an announcement in the Junction City Tribune April 19, 1877. William W. McKanlass and Miss Susan H. Griffin were married at the home of Mrs. Lucinda Price, Will’s mother, by Probate Judge Frank Patterson. Almost all weddings then were home affairs, typically at the bride’s parents’ home, with her mother cooking a wedding supper. Because Will was 19, he needed his mother’s permission to marry. Lucy signed her approval on the marriage license with an X. The wedding was well-attended, and after refreshments were served, Will and Susie took the train to their new home in Manhattan.
In February 1879 there was a new addition to the McKanlass household, baby William Rudolph McKanlass. The paper announced it cleverly: “Will McKanlass, the gentlemanly barber, has a little shaver.”
Early in 1880 Will joined the Choral Union Society, a group of local singers and musicians interested in promoting musical culture. It was an era when even very small towns had a town band and sometimes an orchestra. The group was led in part by Professor William L. Hofer who taught instrumental music at Kansas State. Will’s specialty was violin solos.
He’d done well as a barber. But Will wanted something different, something that used his musical gifts. Suddenly, it seemed, he sold the barber shop in July 1880. The newspaper said, “Mac will teach music in this city.”
Transitions
Just one month later, Will was leading a juvenile brass band in the 1880 Manhattan Emancipation celebration and a Monday afternoon street performance. “They acquitted themselves remarkably well for the short time they have been practicing, and their performances reflect great credit upon themselves and their instructor,” the editor said in the Manhattan Enterprise. The band was uniformed and a source of community pride.
From the 1870s through the 1930s Emancipation celebrations were part of black life in Kansas. By the 1920s, some were three-day affairs with potato sack races, three-legged races, greased pig chases, merry-go-rounds (run by steam engine) and so on. After daytime events typically featuring prayer, speakers, the reading of the Emancipation Proclamation, performances by choirs and a band, there was a supper and dance. At the 1878 Manhattan celebration there was a “grand ball” at Peak’s Hall. The newspaper reporter said, “Will McKanlass, the “boss” tonsorial artist, took the lead and called.” He also rescued an inexperienced dancer from a quadrille. Will’s father-in-law began hosting the Emancipation celebration in Lincoln in the 1880s and Will would play there one year.
But Will still had a restlessness about him, and life as a small-town music teacher would have meant barely scraping by. But performing – if you sold 200 reserved seats at 50 cents apiece, that was $100 for one night (equivalent to about $3,000 in 2023 value)! Sure, you’d have to pay for the venue, advertising, an advance agent, rail transportation, hotel and food. To really put on a show and therefore increase your audience, you’d have to hire other performers and cover their pay, travel and accommodations. There was a performance license, a tax, imposed by nearly every town, equivalent to about $30 in today’s money, at each location. But the possibilities….
“It was a big break when show business started [for blacks],” said minstrel Tom Fletcher, who wrote a book on his experiences and the history of minstrelsy in 1954. “Salaries were not large, but they still amounted to much more than they were getting [before performing] and there was the added advantage of the opportunity to travel.” When Fletcher started in show business in 1881 at age 8, he was paid $5 a week “and cakes,” which meant room and board, while his father worked on a steamboat shoveling coal into engines at $9.50 a week.
It’s interesting that Will chose two of the very rare ways in which a black man could be his own boss, first as a barber, and as a performer running his own company. Newspaper clippings show how he first tested the waters, solo, then added more of an act.
November 25, 1880 - Negro violinist at the Opera House to-night. Will McKanlass at the Opera House tonight. Saline County Journal
November 26, 1880 - Will McKanlass at McCann’s Hall Friday night. McPherson Republican
November 27, 1880 - Will McKanlass of Manhattan gave an entertainment at Centennial Hall last Tuesday evening consisting of negro minstrelsy, vocal and instrumental music, etc. He was assisted by four members of the Manhattan juvenile band and a colored comedian named Douglas. The fair audience in attendance seemed to be satisfied with the performance. McKanlass is an old Junction City boy, is self-educated, and possesses wonderful musical talent. The Junction City Weekly Union
December 2, 1880 - Mr. McKanlass, a colored violinist, gave two or three concerts here last week. He appears to be a musician of more than ordinary ability; with a good programme he would doubtless give very acceptable concerts. McPherson Republican
December 2, 1880 - The concert given by the McKanlass troupe last Thursday evening was greeted by a very small audience. Some of the performances were meritorious – others were of the species very mediocre. Brookville Transcript
So it went. Win some, lose some. With a two-year exception, for the next 30 years, Will’s name would be constantly in the papers. He would form his own company and rarely perform solo. In general reviewers loved him. His troupe got mixed reviews however, from raves to “mediocre” to absolutely bombing.
December 3rd had the first item about financial difficulty. Handbills plastered all over a town were an important means of advertising a show. The editor of the Marion County Record in Marion Centre under the headline, “William McKanlass, Remit,” wrote, “William McKanlass, who was extensively billed for a performance of some kind in this place, Monday and Tuesday nights, failed to put in an appearance, and we hold an order “agin” him for some printing which we discommoded ourselves very much to do for him. It is not right for William to treat printers that way and if any of our newspaper brethren can put us on the track of the derelict showman, we shall treat him to a performance not on his programme.” Then the editor made sure everyone knew Will was Black.
A week later, the Manhattan Enterprise ran an item that said, “Will McKanlass has started on another starring tour.” This time, he hired an advance agent.
Showbiz
The latter half of the nineteenth century was a time of explosive growth in theater. Americans had more discretionary income, increasing numbers lived in cities and towns, and the railroad made it easy for theater troupes and musicians to travel widely. The population increased dramatically and the country itself grew, pushing ever westward. Thousands of new theaters were built. In places like Kansas, even towns with populations of 400 or 500 had so-called opera houses.
The theater industry grew too, even creating new occupations. Management companies, trade publications, and costume shops were some of them. Additionally, there were the dramatic agencies, with people such as Henry Patee, the man Will hired as his advance agent. Henry may have made all the arrangements to rent an opera house or other venue. He traveled to towns Will would appear in, papering the town with advertising handbills, dropping in on the editor to talk up the show, and placing notices and ads in the newspapers. He arranged for the ticket seller (usually at drug stores). Reserved seats when Will started were were 50 cents - equivalent to about $15 in 2023 value. Otherwise they were 35 cents (about $10.50). That was a lot of money for farmers to shell out, but it was an era in which the only way to see entertainment was live.
Blackface
Offensive today, blackface minstrel shows were the most popular entertainment in America for 50 years. A good question to ask is why they became so popular and what it says about the mentality and social psychology of the era. Minstrelsy began decades before the Civil War, presenting Blacks as happy, childlike characters content with their position as slaves. They were simple, comical and loved their master and mistress as parental figures, regardless of age differences. They sang songs like Stephen Foster’s “Massa’s in De Cold, Cold Grave,” mourning a beloved figure, their kind master. Scholar Richard Hughes said, “Songs about idyllic plantation life resonated with Americans adjusting to the new industrial cities of the north.” It also matched how whites wanted to see the races - themselves as benevolent; blacks as loyal, devoted, docile servants.
There was a second stereotype to minstrelsy - incompetent urban fools. Blacks were represented as either living on plantations, secure, happy and well-taken care of, or “ignorant, bumbling buffoons totally out of place outside the South,” as Robert C. Toll wrote. Examples were a black brakeman who thought he was supposed to ‘break’ into people's luggage, or a drunk who thought he was a lawyer because he’d done a lot of “practicing at the bar.” Audiences would laugh – and look down on black people. Anyone that ignorant did not deserve, and could not be given, equal rights.
In the 1880s, coon songs became popular. They were meant to be funny, upbeat, foot-tapping and hand-clapping music. The lyrics are grossly offensive today.
Scholar James Dorman analyzed the lyrics of over 100 songs. They presented blacks as ignorant, lazy, devoid of honesty or personal honor, utterly without ambition, and prone to gambling and lasciviousness. They loved nothing better than stealing chickens and watermelon. They were also razor-wielding savages prone to attack each other at the slightest provocation. (Attacking whites would not have been perceived as funny.) Black women were portrayed as cold and greedy, only after a man for his money, a violation of Victorian ideals of women. Male-female relationships were unwed, short-lived and filled with strife.
It was after Reconstruction, when the nation was grappling with how blacks should be treated, when coon songs appeared and peaked in popularity. Questions of how far to take civil rights - and the rise of Jim Crow and American apartheid - were key issues. Clearly, to many whites, these were dangerous people that one was justified in subjecting and segregating. They were not like us.
It started with white people playing the parts in blackface, before blacks were allowed on stage. People knew what the expressions “to cork up” or “black cork” meant. After the Civil War, black performers also entertained audiences across the country portraying those characters and singing those songs, perpetuating the stereotypes. Why?
On different occasions, Will tried to make a solo show with his considerable violin skills. Ole (pronounced OO-la) Bull, a Norwegian, was the most famous violinist when Will started his career. Ole could pack houses with enthusiastic audiences. But classical violin music wasn’t what crowds wanted to hear from a black man. As minstrel Tom Fletcher said in his book, blacks could make much more in showbiz than in the limited jobs allowed them in American society. Dance historian Nadine George-Graves said the theater was one of the few ways blacks could be their own boss. There really weren’t other choices. It was minstrelsy…or…no showbiz career. They could be back home, working for limited pay and in a narrow range of options - like shoveling coal in a steam engine.
Most white Americans in the North, and in the places where Will performed in Kansas, Nebraska, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, the Dakotas, Montana, Washington, Oregon, Canada, and so on, had little to no contact with blacks. To be able to say one was the real deal, authentically black was a definite draw. Will advertised it, and newspaper editors mentioned it. His first company was billed as the McKanlass Colored Combination.
“Seven genuine colored minstrels.”
“...genuine negros in every respect.”
“Genuine Ethiopians - essence of Old Virginia, having no need of burnt cork.”
They were indeed the real deal.
Life on the Road
The show moved on, playing mostly in very small towns. From January to April 1881, here’s a sample list of towns he performed in, all in northeast Kansas:
Frankfort, pop. 1,053
Parkerville, pop. 202.
Netawaka, pop. about 300.
Wetmore, pop. 340
Whiting, 221
Kirwin, pop. 800
Gaylord, pop. 231
Mankato, pop. 506
Onega, pop. 242
Smith Centre, pop. 254
Scandia, pop. 573
Beloit, pop. 1,835
Osborne, pop.
Atchison, pop. 2,600
Holton, pop. about 2,000.
Will didn’t leave any memoirs, and typical of newspapers of the time, he was not interviewed. What his experiences were like on the road are therefore speculation. But they were probably typical of some of the details Tom Fletcher shared. There were towns where his troupe was refused lodging, even though they never performed in the South. Fletcher said the company had to sleep in the opera house or train station, huddled around a wood or coal stove in winter. He said he greatly improved his reading skills and vocabulary because everyone would read on the train.
Often, when they arrived at the town hall, opera house or other venue, they first had to give it a good cleaning. In many places they made their own footlights, putting candles in whiskey bottles and arranging them on the stage. The company boss would rent a wagon and drive the performers to the location where factory workers had their lunch. They’d sing a few songs and hand out handbills. “A colored man with a banjo would draw almost as big a crowd as an elephant in a circus,” Fletcher wrote.
Will had all the expenses of a theater employer. And, he had to have enough left over to pay himself, to pay for a home and upkeep for Susie and Willie. Or was Susie left with family?
The Act
Will’s act changed from year to year and sometimes within a single year. Typically, it featured Will playing eight instruments at once. A reporter could remember seven of the eight instruments he simultaneously played: a bass drum, triangle, cymbals, tambourine, bones, banjo, and harmonica. He also played two cornets at once at every show, and his violin. The size of his troupe varied but often had a “wide-mouthed” comedian - a black performer in blackface, a soloist, and dancers (clogging in the early 1880s; cake walking and buck-and-wing in the 1890s). At various times he had impersonators. There were child impersonators (something popular at the time), female impersonators, and those impersonating the Chinese, Irish and Italian, since racism wasn’t limited to blacks. There were skits and one year even a short play. For one season there was a trained dog, Dexter, who got good reviews. When roller skating became a national craze in the mid-1880s, Will booked solo shows at skating rinks and added skating performances to his repertoire.
Interestingly, the editor of the Gaylord Herald said that watching him perform, “prejudice on account of race and color melts away.”
Praise and Bumps in the Road
The tour went on in more Kansas small towns in April and May. Washington, Winchester, Waterville and White Cloud. Oskaloosa, Onaga and Oneida. Scandia and Sabetha. Clyde, Clifton and Cawker City. Blue Rapids and Bellville. Jewell and Junction City.
April 8th the Atchison Daily Globe printed a small item, saying, “We are glad to see that William McKanlass, the negro minstrel, is meeting with immense success. He may soon be able to pay a little balance at this office.” On the 25th, another item appeared. “It seems we were in error in the statement that William McKanlass, the negro violinist, is a deadbeat. His agent called today, and after paying nine dollars and forty cents he has been owing for three months, said Professor McKanlass is a musician, not a deadbeat.”
The McKanlass Colored Combination performed at the schoolhouse in Perry and pleased the crowd. This was in spite of a letters received by Perry businessmen from “parties” in Oskaloosa “who wished to injure the troop at this place.” The Kaw Valley Chief editor in Perry, Kansas wrote that, “Many portions of the entertainment were indeed fine, and we can truthfully say the performances were respectable, which can be said of but few negro minstrel performances.”
On May 7th, the Winchester newspaper editor, who praised a January appearance, had harsh words for Will and his troupe. The audience was “sadly disappointed, and though the company had some “rare talent in it,” that wasn’t on display. “Most of it was highly nonsensical and disgusting, and the chief attraction, McKanlass, seemed to be traveling on his former reputation. He appeared as though he thought all that was necessary was to exhibit his own handsome figure, and not his talents. Winchester says good-bye to McKanlass.”
On May 14th, the Winchester paper had more harsh words. “The press generally condemn the performances of the McKanlass colored combination. The prevailing opinion is that there should be more McKanlass and less “combination.”
Changes
The tour had come to an end. May 6th, the Topeka newspaper announced that the McKanlass troupe would spend the summer season in Topeka. May 14th the Junction City newspaper printed an item that Will disbanded his theater troupe and moved to Cincinnati to attend music school, leaving his wife in Junction City until he finished. Maybe this was where Susie and little Willie had been during all his months of travel. The Cawker City and the Topeka newspapers ran items congratulating him.
Why Cincinnati? Why at that particular time? An article in the Junction City newspaper in 1888 offers possible clues. The article celebrated two “colored” young men from Junction City who had made good. William was one; the other was Willoughby B. Young, the top "colored" student who was at Kansas State with him.
In 1879, two years after Will married, Willoughby moved to Ohio and attended Oberlin College from 1879 to 1881. The summer of 1881, Willoughby completed his studies at Oberlin. He moved to Cincinnati where he got a job as a messenger at a bank, a responsible position that involved collecting and delivering cash to businesses.
It’s safe to say that Will and Willoughby knew each other. Could it also be possible that Will’s sudden change of plans, from spending the summer in Topeka to attending music school, might have been inspired by an invitation from Willoughby? He at least saw possibilities, a role model, in Willoughby leaving Kansas for college in Ohio.
A New Job
There were two music schools in the Queen City, the Cincinnati Conservatory of Music and the College of Music of Cincinnati, and newspapers confused the two. They would merge in 1955, but in 1881 the conservatory, which was founded in 1867 as part of a girls’ finishing school, still accepted only women. The College of Music was founded in 1878 by George Ward Nichol, a well-known journalist known for creating the legend of Wild Bill Hickock. Will enrolled in the College of Music. He barely started there when someone told him about an opportunity that he should try for.
In late June and in August, both the Topeka Weekly Times and the Junction City News congratulated Will on passing the exam to qualify as a teacher in the public schools. The Manhattan Nationalist followed on September 1st. The Manhattan paper quoted from The Weekly Review, a black newspaper from New Albany, Indiana. In a profile of Will the editor said, “After he was here three weeks he learned that the Board of Examiners examined parties in special studies, and so he went up to be examined, and came out victorious, receiving an average of 9 on a scale of 10. Mr. Junkerman, his examiner, after seeing what talent the young man had, suggested that he ought to send in an application as Professor of music in the colored schools of Cincinnati, and he has done so.”
Teachers then were given first, second and third-class teaching certificates. All could be employed, but obviously school districts looked to hire first-class teachers. The Junction City newspaper said he was the only “colored” man to be “honored” with a first-class music teaching certificate.
Will did indeed get hired in the Cincinnati “colored” schools. In November the Junction City editor reported that his salary was a thousand dollars a year. This was probably an exaggeration. The U.S. Commissioner of Education released a report in October 1881 on average teacher salaries. They ranged, for men, from a low of $25.54 per month in South Carolina to $84.46 per month in Nevada. And that was for white men. Black teachers and women were paid less except in Maryland and the Choctaw and Seminole tribes of Indian Territory, who paid men and women equal wages. Of course, teachers were only paid for the months when school was in session. (The first compulsory attendance law was passed in Kansas in 1874, with a school year of three to four months.) Whatever his salary really was, Will was able to send for Susie and little Willie to join him at last.
Unsurprising for the times, his reported salary spurred angry racist remarks. The Kirwin, Kansas newspaper editor said Will was being paid $1,600 for teaching “white trash to smile from ear to ear.” He added that, “Country editors are hardly getting their board and clothes,” adding sarcastically, “This is the result of genius and education.”
The editor of the White Cloud Review in White Cloud, Kansas had a rejoinder to that, though. “If you don’t like the idea of working for your board and clothes, supposing you “cork it up” and try your luck at genius and education.”
From November 1881 to September 1883, Will disappeared from the newspaper. Out of show business, he no longer needed constant publicity. It must have been a nice, stable time for his family, which expanded with the birth of his daughter, Adelina Patti McKanlass in August 1883. She was named after a famous Italian soprano, Adelina Patti. Patti was one of the highest paid stars of the day, and in her prime she commanded the astonishing payment of $5,000 a night. She had sung at the White House for the Lincolns, deeply touching them with her rendition of “Home, Sweet Home.” She came to Cincinnati in February for a performance but disappointed music lovers by falling ill and being unable to perform. She was a household name and everyone then would have known whom the McKanlasses named their daughter after.
Troubles in the Queen City
Teachers were given one-year contracts only, and there must have been anxiety each year for many as to whether they kept their job or not. In September 1883, Will’s name was nominated for re-employment by a school board member. But the majority of the board chose Louis Wiesenthal, a white man, because he would also be able to help with music instruction in the white schools. That was something Will was not permitted to do. Four years later, when Cincinnati technically desegregated its schools, black teachers were still not allowed to supervise white children. There were also few, if any, other teaching options for Will. Only the largest school districts had music teachers.
It’s painful, even traumatic, to lose one’s job. Losing his job solely because of the color of his skin had to be especially galling. Worse, a few months later, something that happened to Will back in June spilled into the public.
It was December 1883, and the Cincinnati Post announced that “Southern patronage” had dropped at the College of Music. What could the reason be? The reporter was only too happy to explain. The headline was, “Grating Discord Created by a Negro in the College of Music. The Only Male Graduate in a Class of Young Ladies.” Will was described, in the way newspapers sometimes described black people then, as an “Ethiopian of unmistaken type.” He applied to the college, bringing with him letters of character reference from prominent people including one from a congressman and the editor of the Manhattan newspaper. (John A. Anderson, the former president of Kansas State Agriculture College, was elected to Congress). He paid his tuition in advance, as was required, and was assigned to a Professor Rudolphson for a course in vocal instruction, and to Professor Baetens in violin.
June 1883 was graduation. It was the custom at the college for graduates to give a recital showing off their enhanced musical skills. Names were printed on a program and each graduate could invite all the family and friends they wanted. There were 12 graduates for the Class of 1883, and Will was the only male - and the only black student. Students studied with professors one-on-one in separate rooms. Supposedly, none of the 11 girls knew they had a black man in their midst.
The evening of June 10th, a large number of Will’s friends gathered at Dexter Hall. As they were seated they looked at the program, scanning for his name. Miss Cora Loeb…piano. Miss Lillie Hussey…piano. Miss Molly Klein….vocal. As their eyes scanned the page, there was no mention of Will.
The newspaper claimed that, “Southern girls, who had received elegant wardrobes for the occasion from New Orleans,” fainted, sobbed, “shed oceans of tears on fond mothers’ bosoms or in fathers’ close embrace” at the “degradation” of graduating with a black man.
“Such turmoil has rarely been seen, and the lightening flash of innocent eyes, the rumbling thunder of outraged parents,” was only quieted by removing Will from the program.
Naturally, this was not meekly accepted by Will and his friends. Indeed, Professor Rudolphson said, “if the negro’s money was good enough to receive and he good enough to be assigned to me as a pupil, he should be permitted the benefits given to other scholars, and should be allowed to remain on one of the examination programs.” Will and his friends protested his exclusion and left angry.
The issue didn’t die down. The board of directors met and came up with what they thought was an acceptable compromise. Will would have a private recital, with no guests. Instead of a nighttime performance, his would be in the day, and instead of Dexter Hall, he would sing in Room 7, a classroom. His name would appear on the program with the other students.
The morning of this recital, George Ward Nichol, president of the school, returned from a trip to New York. He said Will’s name needed to be removed from the program; that his name could not appear with the young ladies. Rudophson argued with Nichol until they summoned the board again. The board overruled the president. Will gave his exhibition privately in Room 7 with his name on the program. The program said he performed Andante from Sonatine, in C, No. 3, Mozart and sang an aria from the opera La Giocanda.
The article describing this affair ran over the wire services and was printed in southern states. The Wilmington, North Carolina Weekly Star ran an opinion piece that is highly offensive today. After describing Will physically in the most derogatory terms, by someone who clearly had never seen him, the editor wrote, “If the Northern people prefer to have Negro men in their schools for their daughters they should be allowed to do so without the fear of the Supreme Court in their eyes, or a special act of Congress to prevent the degradation. But Southern white girls have no business in such places. They would do well to be educated at home in the South.”
The Memphis Daily Appeal, before reprinting the article, began with a comment from a Cincinnati correspondent, “As the negroes are everywhere howling for their civil rights, I enclose for you from the Cincinnati Post…” He concluded by saying the “colored brother and sister” would not be permitted to discourage white southern women from enrolling.
The next day the newspaper ran a letter from a friend of Will’s identified only as C.H. with the headline “The McKanlass Muddle. More About the College of Music Colored Pupil.” Mr. H. said that when Will went to Cincinnati with reference letters, one was from a woman of refinement and culture, who wrote that she feared that what he deserved would be denied him based on the color of his skin. “How reasonable were her fears is shown by the treatment he received…”
Will returned to Kansas “and placed his family upon his own farm, a property acquired by his own industry and frugality,” according to his friend “C.H.”
Then he joined Callender’s Minstrels as an instrumentalist. Callendar’s Minstrels was originally owned by Charles Callendar, a white former tavern keeper who employed black performers in blackface. It was wildly popular and played to packed houses. In spite of the revenue pouring in, Callendar refused performer’s requests for more pay and recognition. By the time Will joined them Callendar had sold his company to Charles and Gustave Frohman. The Frohman brothers added elaborate sets and costumes and became known for the most lavish minstrel shows. Charles would later create the Theatrical Syndicate, a nationwide chain of theaters that monopolized bookings on the touring circuit.
By May 1884, Will was no longer with the Callendar company. He joined Mason & Morgan’s Mammoth Uncle Tom’s Cabin Combination as the featured banjoist (“without exception the finest banjoist in America,” the Morris, Minnesota Sun said). Productions of Harriet Beecher Stowe’s famous novel, Uncle Tom’s Cabin, traveled the country (minus the South) from the end of the Civil War into the 1930s. As the Holton Signal editor said in Holton, Kansas in 1915, nearly everyone had seen at least one version of the show – live, of course.
It would seem in some ways that working for large, established companies would be a good move. Will wouldn’t have to worry about payroll and bookings. He could just perform. But of course, he wasn’t his own boss. He must have wanted to be. By July, he was on his own again, working as a solo act.
On the Road Again
In later years, Will claimed he studied violin in Leipzig, Germany, famous for its musical history. Is it possible that he saved enough money for a trip to Europe and lessons with an accomplished teacher? Newspaper articles document his presence in the U.S., in a constant round of performing. There wasn't a time in which he could've been in Leipzig.
Besides, simply moving to Cincinnati to study was considered newsworthy enough for several Kansas newspapers to announce, not just his “hometown” Junction City and Manhattan papers. Likewise, passing the teaching exam was considered big enough news to share. So was getting hired as a teacher. This was news Will shared himself, including writing letters to the editors (which unfortunately were mentioned but not printed). If he left for Leipzig, he would have made sure there were items in the newspaper about it, and more at his return.
A Family Affair
January 14, 1886, the Junction City newspaper ran a short article that Mrs. Susan McKanlass celebrated her 29th birthday. An “elegant supper” was prepared and music “indulged in.” Two months later, an item in the paper said, “Mrs. McKanlass, who has been spending a few weeks among friends and relatives in this city, departed on Tuesday last for San Francisco, where she will join her husband, Prof. Wm. McKanlass.”
September 1886, Willie and Patti were mentioned for the first time as part of the act. They performed at the hall of a salmon fishery in Redding, Washington, and the newspaper said “The two little children, Patti and Willie, are wonderful for their age.”
By June 1887, his children were billed as “Master Willie, champion boy phenomenon of the world,” and “Adelina Patti, the little electric battery.” Ads said that Willie was only six years old and Patti had just turned three. In reality, Willie was eight and Patti was turning five in August. Two years later, in an 1889 ad in the San Luis Obispo newspaper, Will was still claiming that Willie was only six. This was probably to make his talent seem even more impressive.
Will wrote the Junction City paper from Salt Lake City in June 1887 and said he’d recently returned from a tour of Australia. Could this be true, or is this another “Leipzig'' claim? It certainly caught people’s eye. But in fact, from February to July 1887 he was touring in the U.S., mostly California, with some stops in Salt Lake and Denver. There was no time for him to travel to Australia, tour, and return for the engagements. In July he was back in Kansas traveling from one little dot on the map to another. But in September ads for his just-formed McKanlass All-Star Colored Specialty Company advertised that they were “direct from Australia.” It was showbiz.
Picture a movie scene designed to show the passage of time and distance: a close-up shot of an old steam locomotive churning down the tracks. As the train whistle blows, we see the names of some of the towns Will performed in.
St. Helen, Oroville, San Bernardino, Galt, Marysville and Santa Maria, California; Idaho Spring, Fort Collins and Denver, Colorado; Russell, Kansas; Wilson, Kansas; Brookville, Kansas; Abilene, Osage City, Ottawa, Sterling, Kinsley, Syracuse, Larned, Garden City, Chapman, Hutchison, Salina, Minneapolis, Marion, Lincoln, Ellsworth, Russell, Newton and Lawrence, Kansas; Tucson, Arizona; Modesto, Selma, Tulare, and Stockton, California.
That was what his year was like. What was different was the whole family was on the road and performing. The first mention of Susie on stage was in March in Sacramento. “Miss Susie Griffin, a woman possessed of a ‘quartet of voices,’was remarkable,” the enthusiastic review in the Stockton paper said. “Miss Griffin has a strong dramatic voice of remarkable range."
As with Will’s entire career, other performers came and went, some joining his act for only a few shows. In 1887 there was Miss Emma Montell, a soprano, “the black Jenny Lind,” and comedian A.L. Sales. Sales worked as Will’s advance agent when he wasn’t performing himself. He would stay with Will for over a decade, becoming manager of the troupe, while performing as “the famous eccentric wide-mouthed comedian.” For a few stops they had George Catlin, a comedian, as “John Chinaman,” also described as “the impersonator of the Heathen Chinee, Irishman, Jew and Italian.” There was John Bailey, who entertained the audience with his “original plantation pastime amusements,” comedy, and song and dance; and Milt Johnson, “in his old darky impersonation.” There was the McKanlass jubilee quartet led by Miss Dora Redding in plantation melodies and church hymns.
In March the Oroville newspaper let readers know that A.L. Sales contracted with them for three dollars in advertising, then the McKanlass Company dragged its feet for three months before paying the bill. There were nights like one in Stockton when only 20 people bought tickets and Will canceled the show. Most of the time, though, the house was full, and audiences were happy.
In July, they were back in Kansas and Will performed at the Lincoln Emancipation celebration held on his father-in-law’s grove.
The McKanlass Company spent summer and fall in the sunflower state, then headed back to California.
A Scandal
The first three-quarters of 1890 the McKanlass family was together on the road. It must have been exhausting, and difficult for the children to perform night after night, trying to please an audience, sleeping in hotels, and boarding trains to move on again. Reviews were, as usual mixed. They had nights of apparent brilliance, nights when they were reviewed as mediocre, and a few occasions where they bombed. In Nanaimo, British Columbia in April they were hissed, and a woman called out that if they even put on half a show the audience would be satisfied. In Salem, Oregon in June, the reviewer said Willie and Patti were the most accomplished child performers he had ever seen. In Pullman, Washington in July, a few brief lines of review said that the show was a “rehash” of all the old minstrel shows that appeared in the city for the last two years. In Palouse, Washington in August it was standing room only to see them, and the crowd was well-pleased.
Days after the Palouse performance, the family’s life was upended by scandal. Typically, newspaper information was contradictory. There were two items in the Albany Democrat in Oregon on August 22nd. One said Will enticed a Colfax girl away from home, was caught living in a hotel with her, arrested for adultery and was acquitted due to lack of evidence. The other item was from the Walla Walla Union. It said that Mrs. Josie Craig of Genesee, Idaho eloped with a negro minstrel named McKanlass. “The elopers were followed, arrested for adultery and on trial acquitted. Mrs. Craig attempted to leave the courtroom with her black paramour when her mother, driven almost insane with grief, endeavored to kill her and was prevented with difficulty. She was deserted the next day by McKanlass and now says she will kill him on sight.”
This article strongly implies that the woman was white. Later articles were more explicit. If so, Will had committed the greatest offense possible in his era.
September 6th the Albany Democrat repeated their information about the young Colfax girl and said she was back at home, “madder than a wet hen.” September 10th the Spokane paper ran a story from Walla Walla which said the McKanlass troupe was stranded there. “Four weeks ago McKanlass, who is a well-educated and gentlemanly-appearing mulatto, ensnared the affections of a young girl at Farmington. She has since accompanied him on his rounds. When the McKanlass troupe, consisting of five members, arrived in this city Saturday, a meeting occurred among them and, as McKanlass informed a reporter, he had hard work to induce them to appear on stage.'' The troupe disbanded after the show, and Will took a Sunday morning train east with the girl and her eight-year old brother. The article noted that he was a married man with two children, ages eight and five. (They were actually 11 and eight.) The Seattle Post-Intelligencer ran the same wire service story with the headline, “Ran Off With a White Girl.” September 12th the Albany, Oregon Daily said Will passed through Pendleton on Sunday with the “deluded young woman and her brother,” this time identifying her as being from Lewiston.
On the 15th the editor of the Albany Daily Democrat said that papers “couldn’t be too severe on a darkey minstrel who has ruined the prospects of a young and innocent girl,” but added that it was innuendo and reporting innuendo was unjust. In October Will and the McKanlass troupe were still hitting the boards in Oregon towns. In November, he started the month in Caldwell, Idaho. November 19th the Missoula Weekly Gazette ran a story with the headline, “A Foolish Girl -- Elopes With Well-Known Negro Musician, McKanlass.” This article said the girl was 19, her name was Josephine Carleton, and she was from Lewiston, Washington. A man came to Walla Walla searching for her, convinced that she was too ashamed to return home, and was working at a house of “ill fame” there. Her little brother’s whereabouts were unknown.
November 29th, the Saint Paul, Minnesota Appeal reported that “Mr. and Mrs. McKanlass of the McKanlass Specialty Company, were in town as guests of Mrs. M. Shield.
What to make of this?
The young woman was either Mrs. Josie Craig or Miss Josephine Carleton.
She was from Colfax, Washington. Or Genesee, Idaho. Or Farmington, Washington. Or Lewiston, Washington.
She’d returned home angry. Or she was so ashamed to return home that she stayed in Walla Walla, supporting herself as a prostitute.
Will’s troupe disbanded. Or Will was performing with them or a hastily-assembled new troupe, because he was still performing, though at very few bookings in October and November and none in December.
The sensational account of the adultery trial, with the mother trying to kill her own daughter right in the courtroom was reported nowhere else. Indeed, the articles about this elopement were seemingly limited to Washington, Oregon and Montana.
What to believe?
More Troubles
January found the McKanlass specialty company back in Kansas, where the Sterling Evening Bulletin editor called the show better than any minstrel show that had come through Sterling before. As usual, Will’s ability to play two cornets simultaneously dazzled. But in Winfield in early February, the editor hated the show and had a problem with Will. “McKanlass is a good musician, but he has more genuine, born, bred and irrepressible Ethiopian conceit than any man who ever held the boards in this city.” He called the company “barnyard freaks” who were “wooden-headed chumps whose chestnuts tire an audience in an instant.” He said the children were not to be blamed for not knowing how to entertain, “because they are not old enough and have not been properly trained.” He finished off by saying, “All the show there is to speak of is McKanlass’ cheek, gall and fancy clothes.”
Will had many a bad review before this one, but something rubbed him the wrong way. He responded with a letter in the Wellington Mail, and the Winfield paper printed it too.
“...I will just speak from experience, that I meet white men of his type [the Winfield newspaper editor] every day and if they see an Ethiopian that is able to look them in the face with a clear conscience as much as to say, “You have no advantage of me,” he is always willing to throw him beneath the dogs and beasts as this man did me. But thank God, I am able to consider the source, as a man of knowledge is always considered conceited by an ignoramus. The gentleman speaks of my good clothes and diamonds. Yes, I wear them, and that explains all his remarks and shows his raising. He throws wrath at my two little children’s ignorance. I may not be able to teach anyone in Winfield, but I taught in the public schools of Cincinnati for two years, 1882 and 1883,....and I hold an unlimited certificate from the board of examiners in Cincinnati, Hamilton County, Ohio, and I was endorsed for the position of teacher by such men as John A. Anderson, congressman from Kansas, and Mr. Albert Griffin, editor of the Manhattan Nationalist, Riley County, Kansas, and others.
In regard to my show, we don’t expect to give satisfaction to every person in the audience; and our clothes are all paid for, and furthermore, we can live without the patronage of the Winfield public, and the critic will find that out in the future. Kansas is no place for such rebel copperheads as him. The South would be better.
Prof. W.H. McKanlass
But to go up against a newspaper, people forget the editor can always have the last word. The editor responded:
In this Mr. McKanlass not only exhibits his conceit again, but shows his ignorance, and shows also that John Anderson and Albert Griffin were not acquainted with their man when they gave their endorsement. The COURIER has ever been the friend to the colored man, and has had about as much abuse heaped upon it on account of championing his causes against “the rebel” as any newspaper in Kansas.
The trouble with McKanlass is his conceit. The fact that he has been a teacher in the Cincinnati schools does not license him to run all over the state of Kansas with a rotten semblance of a show, bilking money out of the public. The white men’s shows are treated the same as the colored in Winfield. The COURIER complements the good and “roasts” the bad, and McKanlass’ so-called show is the worst that has inflicted Winfield in years.
He continued saying that no one would be sorry if Will didn’t return to Winfield, and ended by saying he didn’t know the children were Will’s.
Trouble continued to find him in February in Scranton, Kansas. During a performance at the Grande Theater, the audience noticed the theater manager and police officers making multiple visits to the dressing room. After the show, Will and B.L. Sanders were arrested on charges of assaulting C.W. Allegre and H.S. Ainsworth. As the troupe came down off the stage, Will had an altercation with the theater manager, which was witnessed by the departing audience. The newspaper editor said that Will acted the gentleman and the same could not be said for the theater manager. The trouble arose when Will refused to pay rent for the theater, claiming the manager had not fulfilled his part of the contract.
Will and Sanders had a trial at midnight. After Will was found not guilty, Sander’s charges were dropped. The newspaper editor lamented that good entertainers would not want to come to town due to the actions of the theater manager. Willie and Adelina were praised for their parts but Will was feeling sick and left out most of his part. The rest of the troupe was “below average, and rough appearing.” The next day, they were “warmly greeted” in home territory: Manhattan. A few days later the company played to a full house in Junction City, where they were warmly reviewed. In Cawker City the newspaper said they would soon be returning for another tour of Australia. As with such claims before, this was not true and they were instead busy touring Kansas, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Iowa.
Will started something done by larger, more famous minstrel troupes - a 20-minute band parade down the main street of town the day of their show. These band parades were a familiar sight to Americans, who were also used to a circus parade when the circus came to town. They were entertainment in themselves, and accomplished the goal of increasing ticket sales.
Whatever happened in Walla Walla in the spring, Susie was still performing with him. The Sauk Centre, Minnesota newspaper in September 1891 described her as the “man-voiced woman – sings as low as an E flat and with a volume that jars the house.” It was the last time she would be named in his show. Master Willie and sister were described as wonderful in both singing and dancing. November 16th, Willie was laid up in his hotel room in Sioux City, Iowa with pneumonia. Ten days later, Susie had taken the children to Junction City to visit relatives. Will, as always, carried on with the show.
The next time Susie and the children were mentioned was October 1893. An item in the Lincoln Beacon said, “The family of W.A. McKanlass, the famous minstrel, returned to Lincoln from the negro settlement on Bacon creek. The object was to return the children to school.”
Will was on the road days later, in Nebraska, then South Dakota, with Miss Trixie Sylvester, “the Creole beauty.” He had financial difficulties. In January, Trixie convinced a judge to impound two trunks and a violin, cornet, banjo and guitar until he paid Trixie $115.57 in back wages and repayment of money she advanced him. In May, the proprietor of a hotel in Fox Lake, Wisconsin came to their show to collect $18 owed him from a stay a year before.
No records or newspaper clipping has been found about when Susie died, but a best guess is 1895. By July 1895, Patti and Willie were on the road performing with their father again.
August 25, 1899, an ad ran in the Times-Herald of Port Huron, Michigan announcing the farewell performance of William Randolph, the great pianist, and little Patti McKanlass, the famous child singer. Ticket prices had fallen to only 20 cents for adults and 15 cents for children. Later newspaper articles about Willie said he moved to Port Huron in 1899. He was 20 years old, and Patti was 17. A month later, Willie and Lizzie Thurman won first place in a cake walk competition in Unionville, Michigan.
Patti performed with her father until at least 1903. By then she was 20, and joined her brother in Port Huron. Mac, as Willie was now called, made a living as an orchestra director staying in one place.
Will never settled down. He formed a new company, the Great McKanlass and the Alabama Warblers. From at least 1907 to 1910 he performed with a woman named Lizzie Perry with and without the Warblers. She was also noted in ads as the "4-voiced warbler," a champion cake waker, buck-and-wing dancer and impersonator. She was described variously as a "Jewish Creole" and a Cuban.
The last news clipping found about him was an April 1910 ad for a vaudeville show in Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada. Peter Lefferts in a 1913 article in Black Music Research Journal said he died in 1911. Unfortunately, no news item or obituary has been found.
Afterward: Patti and Mac
As is often the case when researching people, there are gaps in the official records of the entire McKanlass family. Census records haven't been found for Will and his mother in 1870, for anyone in the family in 1900, or for Patti in 1910. Neither have death records or obituaries for either Will or Susie, or a marriage and divorce record for Patti. Susie’s father’s death notice in February 1901 said he had 12 children, and only one, the youngest, survived him.
Mac, as Willie was known in adulthood, made a living as a musician for the rest of his life. He studied piano under Carrie Hubbard Webb, a noted black piano teacher. He married in 1902, was widowed in 1919, and remarried in 1932. He became a beloved figure in the town, remembered for his congeniality and a constant smile, as well as being the face of live music in the city. He led an eight-piece orchestra that played at a variety of local and nearby events from graduations to dances. For 15 years his orchestra played at a city-owned lakeside dance pavilion. For years he played the piano at dinner meetings of the Lions, Rotary, Exchange and Kiwanis clubs. He also played drums in the Port Huron City Band and was a popular music teacher.
He was also a composer. His most remembered piece today is “Bag of Rags,” published in 1912, which became the unofficial music of the Keystone Kops of silent movie fame. Unlike his father, he found a way to perform without having to constantly travel.
His 1937 obituary credited his parents for his musical training, but otherwise did not describe his childhood or mention his father’s career. It did say he traveled for years with “some of the big minstrel shows that were popular a generation ago,” working with big minstrel stars such as Sam Lucas and Billy Kersand. He also worked in Uncle Tom’s Cabin shows led by Ed. F. Davis.
Somehow, to the end of his life, Mac didn’t escape from minstrel shows. In 1930 the Port Huron Exchange Club and the Schubert Club began an annual charity fundraiser Schubert-Exchange Minstrel Show, in which Mac was the accompanist. The 1932 show featured a plantation scene with bales of cotton and “colored workers lounging about as they sang “Old Black Joe,” and “River, Stay ‘Way From My Door,” according to an article in the Port Huron paper.
Mac may have been genuinely beloved. Club members were happy to have him play the piano at every service club meeting in town. But he could not shake the racism of the town or times. He couldn’t join the service organizations himself. Months after his death, his wife Bertha led a campaign to raise funds for a community center for blacks. She was tired of landlords refusing to rent meeting space to black service clubs and organizations.
Bertha succeeded in buying a house, named McKanlass House in memory of her husband. It was used at least into the late 1950s.
When Patti had just turned nine, she was interviewed by a reporter in Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin. She was described as “a shade lighter in complexion than many in her race” and had silky hair. She had “quite a little learning for a small girl,” and was agreeable, pleasant company, a good singer, and made friends wherever she went. She told the reporter that she was not afraid to be on stage, and she had traveled all her life.
After her stage career with her father ended, Patti moved to Port Huron and married. The marriage was evidently a brief one, and although Patti was identified as a widow on census records and in her 1955 obituary, her husband outlived her. In between her brother’s marriages, Patti lived with him and did not work. At the time of his death she was living in Chicago, though she soon after moved back to Port Huron.
When Patti died, her obituary, like the majority at that time, gave no hint of the person she was or the interesting childhood she had. She was Mrs. Harry Moultrie, widow, sister of the well known musician and orchestra leader, William R. McKanlass, and a member of Shiloh Baptist Church. The only survivor listed was her sister-in-law Bertha, who moved to Detroit in 1940 to be closer to her children.
Sources:
Newspapers:
Enrolled in College: The Industrialist (Manhattan, Kansas), 30 Oct 1875, p. 3.
New Barber: Manhattan Enterprise (Manhattan, Kansas), 7 March 1877, p. 1.
“The Bates Trial,” The Manhattan Nationalist (Manhattan, Kansas), 14 March 1879, p. 2.
Holton Recorder (Holton, Kansas), 20 Jan 1881, p. 8.
“McKanlass-Griffin,” The Junction City Tribune (Junction City, Kansas), 19 April 1877, p. 3.
Best Barber: Manhattan Enterprise, 1 August 1877, p. 1.
Boss Barbershop: “Removal.” Manhattan Enterprise, 6 March 1878, p. 1.
“Emancipation Celebration. Grand Carnival in Manhattan,” Manhattan Enterprise, 7 Aug 1878, p. 1.
“Born,” Manhattan Nationalist (Manhattan, Kansas), 28 Feb 1879, p. 4.
Hot and Cold Baths,” Manhattan Enterprise, July 1879, p. 1.
Winning Footrace: “The Fair. Friday,” Manhattan Enterprise, 17 Oct 1879, p. 5.
Violin Solo at Choral Union: Manhattan Nationalist, 6 Feb 1880, p. 4.
Davis, John. “Editorial Gossip on Wheels. The Negro Question,” The Junction City Tribune, 3 June 1880, p. 2.
Sells Barbershop: Manhattan Enterprise, 2 July 1880, p. 1.
Juvenile Brass Band: Manhattan Enterprise, 6 Aug 1880, p. 1.
“Will McKanlass Remit?” Marion County Record (Marion Centre, Kansas), 3 Dec 1880, p. 3.
“McKanlass At Whiting,” The Holton Recorder (Holton, Kansas), 20 Jan 1881, p. 8.
“McKanlass vs. Ole Bull,” The Independent (Havensville, Kansas), 26 Jan 1881, p. 4.
Average Teacher Salary: “Interesting Facts,” Wyandotte Gazette (Wyandotte, Kansas), 28 Oct 1881, p. 1.
Salary and Susie Moving to Cincinnati: Junction City Tribune, 24 Nov 1881, p. 3.
Remarks About Salary: The Kirwin Chief (Kirwin, Kansas), 7 Dec 1881, p. 3.
Teaching School: Smith County Pioneer (Smith Centre, Kansas), 6 Jan 1882, p. 4.
“School Board. Batch of Routine Business Transacted,” Cincinnati Enquirer, 18 Sept 1883, p. 2.
“Grating Discord Created by a Negro in the College of Music,” Cincinnati Post, 5 Dec 1883, p. 1.
“The McKanlass Muddle, More About the College of Music Colored Pupil,” Cincinnati Post, 6 Dec 1883, p. 1.
“A Colored Pupil in the Cincinnati College of Music, and the Only Man in a Very Large Class Is the Occasion of Discord Not Even the Combined Faculty Could Correct,” Memphis Daily Appeal, 9 Dec 1883, p. 1.
“Negro Creates a Rumpus,” The Weekly Star (Wilmington, North Carolina), 14 Dec 1883, p. 2.
“The School Board Batch of Routine BusinessTransacted,” Cincinnati Enquirer, 18 Sept 1883, p. 2.
Mason & Morgan: The Sun (Morris, Minnesota), 15 May 1884, p. 4.
“High Jinks at the Trout Ponds,” Free Press (Redding, California), 25 Sept 1886, p. 4.
“The Metropolitan,” The Union Record (Sacramento, California), 28 Feb 1887, p. 3.
Forced to Pay Bill: The Weekly Mercury (Oroville, California), 18 March 1887, p. 3.
“The McKanlass Minstrels,” The Evening Mail (Stockton, California), 23 March 1887, p. 3.
Australian Claim: Junction City Tribune (Junction City, Kansas), 30 June 1887, p. 3.
Craig Buster and Emancipation Celebration: Lincoln County Democrat (Lincoln, Kansas), 14 July 1887, p. 1.
“Emancipation Picnic,” Lincoln County Democrat (Lincoln, Kansas), 28 July 1887, p. 1.
"San Luis Opera House,” (Advertisement), San Luis Obispo Tribune, 31 Jan 1889, p. 2.
Capacity of Opera Houses, The Lance (Topeka, Kansas), 24 Aug 1889, p. 5.
Arrested For Adultery: Albany Democrat (Albany, Oregon), 22 Aug 1890, p. 3.
“Walla Walla News,” Spokane Daily Chronicle (Spokane, Washington), 10 Sept 1890, p. 2.
Innuendo: Albany Daily Democrat (Albany, Oregon), 15 Sept 1890, p. 3.
“A Foolish Girl. Elopes With Well-Known Negro Musician, McKanlass.” Missoula Weekly Gazette (Missoula, Montana), 19 Nov 1890, p. 8.
“McKanlass Specialty Company,” McPherson Daily Republican (McPherson, Kansas), 23 Jan 1891, p. 3.
“The Fake Minstrel Show,” Winfield Daily Courier (Winfield, Kansas), 5 Feb 1891, p. 3.
“McKanlass Comes Back,” Winfield Daily Courier, 7 Feb 1891, p. 3.
“The Trouble At the Grand,” Osage County Times (Scranton, Kansas), 20 Feb 1891, p. 8.
“A Successful Specialty Company,” Cawker City Public Record (Cawker City, Kansas), 5 March 1891, p. 3.
Harassed By Cowboys: Concordia Empire (Concordia, Kansas), 12 March 1891, p. 2.
“Little McKanlass,” Chippewa Falls Herald-Telegram (Chippewa Falls, Wisconsin), 21 Aug 1891, p. 3.
Scheduled to Appear: Wilson World (Wilson, Kansas), 5 May 1892, p. 3.
“J.A. McKanlass,” The Saline County Journal (Salina, Kansas), 9 Feb 1893, p. 2.
“A Junction City Boy,” Kansas City Daily Gazette (Kansas City, Kansas), 10 Feb 1893, p. 2.
Performs in Minnesota: Princeton Union (Princeton, Minnesota), 17 Aug 1893, p. 5.
Putting Children Back in School: The Lincoln Beacon (Lincoln, Kansas), 12 Oct 1893, p. 2.
Possessions Impounded: Lincoln Journal Star (Lincoln, Nebraska), 25 Jan 1894, p. 5.
Wages “Garnished,” The Representative (Fox Lake, Wisconsin), 18 May 1894, p. 4.
Performance: The Pick and Gad (Shullsburg, Wisconsin), 7 June 1894, p. 5.
Willie and Patti Perform: Mineral Point Weekly Tribune (Mineral Point, Wisconsin), 28 Nov 1895, p. 1.
Crowd Hates Show: The Calumet News (Calumet, Michigan), 15 April 1896, p. 3.
Rocky Show: Cooperstown Courier (Cooperstown, North Dakota), 18 Sept 1896, p. 9.
“The McKanlass Concert,” Southern Alberta News (Lethbridge, Alberta, Canada), 16 Dec 1896, p. 1.
“Giant Quartette,” The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan), 25 Aug 1899, p. 4.
Death of Susie’s Father: “Bruster,” Lincoln Beacon (Lincoln, Kansas), 14 Feb 1901, p. 4.
“Aunt Lucy Passes Away,” Junction City Tribune (Junction City, Kansas), 31 May 1901, p. 3.
Handles Mother’s Estate: Junction City Tribune, 7 June 1901, p. 5.
“Prof. McKanlass Storms Milwaukee,” The Junction City Weekly Union (Junction City, Kansas), 5 July 1901, p. 1.
“Hotel Arrivals,” Edmonton Bulletin (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), 17 Feb 1902, p. 1.
“The Alabama Warblers Tonight,” Lewiston Inter-State News (Lewiston, Idaho), 26 June 1902, p. 1.
William R. and Dancing School: The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan), 30 Sept 1902, p. 5.
“Coming – Alabama Warblers,” Morning Register (Eugene, Oregon), 16 Nov 1902, p. 5.
Grants Pass Opera House Ad: Weekly Rogue River Courier (Grants Pass, Oregon), 4 Dec 1902, p. 4.
“New Orchestra,” The Times Herald, 13 Dec 1902, p. 9.
Slave to Cherokee, Remarks About Booker T. Washington: “A Good Show By the Warblers,” The Pomona Progress (Pomona, California), 30 April 1903, p. 1.
“Stage People in Court,” Oakland Tribune (Oakland, California), 18 June 1903, p. 6.
“The McKanlass Troop - Traveling Minstrels Who Prey on the Public Morals,” The Eureka Sentinel (Eureka, Nevada), 11 Feb 1905, p. 3.
“Editor Evidently saw the “Hootchie-Cootchie” Dance,” The Feather River Bulletin (Quincy, California), 5 June 1905, p. 3.
Popular in Butte: The Butte Miner (Butte, Montana), 2 Dec 1906, p. 13.
“Merrymakers Are Sad, and the Show Is Off,” The Anaconda Standard (Anaconda, Montana), 5 Dec 1906, p. 9.
Opera House Ad: Edmonton Journal (Edmonton, Alberta, Canada), 22 March 1907, p. 4.
McKanlass Theatricals Ad: The Salt Lake Herald-Republican, 6 Dec 1907, p. 5.
Great Violinist at Opera House: The Meagher County News (White Sulphur Springs, Montana), 11 Dec 1908, p. 3.
“Empire Theater,” Edmonton Journal, 6 Aug 1909, p. 4.
“Lyric Theater,” Star-Phoenix (Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada), 5 Feb 1910, p. 2.
“Charity Minstrels Play to Capacity Audience Tuesday,” The Times Herald (Port Huron, Michigan), 10 Feb 1932, p. 7.
Other:
Bertaux, Nancy and Michael Washington, “The “Colored Schools” of Cincinnati and African American Community in Nineteenth Century Cincinnati, 1849-1890,” Journal of Negro History, Vol. 74, No. 1 (Winter 2005), pp. 43-52.
Biennial Catalog of the Kansas State Agricultural College, Manhattan, Kansas, Calendar Years 1875-1877, Manhattan, Kansas: Printing Department, Agricultural College, 1877.
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