Frank Brower

After a successful tour in the British Isles, Brower returned to the United States and teamed with Emmett and other blackface performers for a time. In the 1850s, he left minstrelsy to work in the Tom shows based on Uncle Tom\'s Cabin. He returned to minstrelsy briefly as the decade closed and nostalgia for the old minstrel show came into fashion. In 1867, Brower retired from show business and opened a saloon.\n', '

Francis Marion Brower was born on November 20, 1823, in Baltimore, Maryland. Brower began his career at age 13, first performing at Dick Meyer\'s Third and Chestnut Streets Museum in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Brower claimed to have learned to dance from black people, and he took to doing song-and-dance blackface performances in circuses and theatres. For the 1840 season, Brower toured with the Cincinnati Circus Company, paired with a banjoist named Ferguson. The two became…