That Nigger Treated Me All Right: Museum Object and Cultural History

The object in the museum catalogue

Sheet music for the song "That Nigger Treated Me All Right." The front cover of the sheet music features an image of a white woman in a dress. The image has a blue hue. A colorful design borders the image. Blue type on the front cover reads: [That Nigger / Treated Me All Right / AS SUNG BY / FLO IRWIN / WORDS AND MUSIC BY / Walter Hausley / AUTHOR OF / FLO I LOVE YOU SO / I'll Carve That Nigger When / We Meet ]. Underneath the image is another text box that reads: [FLO-IRWIN / MUSICAL SUPPLEMENT / TO THE / SUNDAY EXAMINER / PUBLISHED BY WILL ROSSITER CHICAGO ILL N.Y.]. The interior of the sheet music has two pages of music bars and notes, in black ink, for the song. The music bars and notes for the song continue on the back cover in blue ink. At the bottom of the music bars, the lyrics are written out.

Materials, dates and provenance

• Date: 1898
• Subject of: Flora Irwin
• Composed by: Walter Hausley
• Published by: Will Rossiter Publisher, American
• Owned by: Vernon Sugg McDonald, American, 1906 - 1982
• Owned by: Mary Elizabeth Sugg, American, 1839 - 1915
• Type: sheet music
• Medium: ink on paper
• Dimensions: H x W: 13 5/8 × 10 3/4 in. (34.6 × 27.3 cm)
• Place collected: Sugg McDonald House, Sonora, Tuolumne County, California, United States, North and Central America
• Place printed: Chicago, Cook County, Illinois, United States, North and Central America
• Topic: African American
• Topic: Minstrel (Music)
• Topic: Stereotypes
• Object number: 2014.275.17
• Credit Line: Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture, Gift of Sylvia Alden Roberts
• Data Source: National Museum of African American History and Culture

Sources and reuse

Catalogue descriptions and facts adapted from National Museum of African American History and Culture through the Smithsonian's official Open Access dataset. This record explicitly marks its metadata CC0 1.0; formatting and selection have been changed. The underlying object's rights statement is: Public Domain Proper usage is the responsibility of the user.