Little Ah Sid
Channel: Stephen Griffith
Date: 2020-09-03

Day 170 of the American Songbag Stay-at-Home Series

Gags like this song very rarely rose beyond racist gags. It's one reason I debated even performing the song, especially because I am sensitive to songs making fun of others. There have been other racist implications in the American Songbag. But even if you eliminated the lifetime achievement award from the NAACP Sandburg received as a counter-balance, it would be hard to categorize Sandburg as racist. In my opinion, he was of his time, a journalist reporting on the culture....and collecting songs reflecting the culture.

In fact, as I've said before, recording these songs is part of my work on a book about Sandburg and the American Songbag. Having already outlined the book, I'm working on the chapter "The American Songbag and Race." I figure if I get this chapter written it will be all downhill.

Sandburg writes the following about "Little Ah Sid": "A popular song, a minstrel ballad, a favorite among chuck wagon cooks on the Chisholm Trail, as I am told by one of the cooks who had been a minstrel. From West Coast cities it traveled to gold diggings and cattle ranges."

From the beginning of the California gold rush until 1882 approximately 300,000 Chinese arrived in the United States. The sheet music for Little Ah Sid was published in 1883. Years later, in 1904, a comic strip was penned by Clarence Rigby titled Little Ah Sid the Chinese Kid, one of the longer running series from that time. The strip’s title was stolen from a popular novelty song of the 1880s. The strip closely mirrored the tenor of the song.  Little Ah Sid the Chinese Kid started on March 6 1904 and the inital run ended on November 6 of that year. But Rigby later revived the strip new episodes from October 15 1905 to May 19 1907.