The Rabbit's Foot Company, also known as the Rabbit('s) Foot Minstrels and colloquially as "The Foots", was a long-running minstrel and variety troupe that toured as a tent show in the American South between 1900 and the late 1950s. It was established by Pat Chappelle, an African-American entrepreneur in Tampa, Florida.
After his death in 1911, Fred Swift Wolcott bought the company. He was the white owner of a festival touring group in South Carolina. Wolcott was owner and manager of the company until 1950. It was the base for the careers of many leading African-American musicians and entertainers, including Arthur "Happy" Howe, Ma Rainey, Ida Cox, Bessie Smith, Butterbeans and Susie, Tim Moore, Big Joe Williams, Louis Jordan, Brownie McGhee, Rufus Thomas, and Charles Neville.
Pat Chappelle's Rabbit's Foot Company, 1900–1911
The company was founded, organized, originally owned, and managed by Pat Chappelle (1869–1911), an African-American former string band guitar player and entrepreneur. Originally from Jacksonville, Florida, he established a small chain of theatres in the late 1890s. In 1898, Chappelle organized his first traveling show, the Imperial Colored Minstrels (or Famous Imperial Minstrels), which featured the comedian Arthur "Happy" Howe and toured successfully around the South. Chappelle also opened the Excelsior Hall in Jacksonville, the first black-owned theater in the South, which reportedly seated 500 people. In 1899, he closed the theater and moved to Tampa, where he and the African-American entrepreneur R. S. Donaldson opened a new vaudeville house, the Buckingham, in the Fort Brooke neighborhood, soon followed by a second theatre, the Mascotte.
The success of their shows at the Buckingham and Mascotte theatres led Chappelle and Donaldson to announce their intention, in early 1900, to establish a traveling vaudeville show. Chappelle commissioned Frank Dumont (1848–1919), of the Eleventh Street Theater in Philadelphia, to write a show for the new company. Dumont was an experienced writer for minstrel shows, who "wrote perhaps hundreds of skits and plays". A Rabbit's Foot had little plot; a newspaper at the time said that it "is an excellent vehicle for the presentation of an abundant amount of rag-time, sweet Southern melodies, witty dialogue, buck dancing, cake walks, and numerous novelties".
In May 1900, Chappelle and Donaldson advertised for "60 Colored Performers... Only those with reputation, male, female and juvenile of every description, Novelty Acts, Headliners, etc., for our new play 'A Rabbit's Foot'.... We will travel in our own train of hotel cars, and will exhibit under canvas". In summer 1900, Chappelle decided to put the show into theatres rather than under tents, first in Paterson, New Jersey, and then in Brooklyn, New York. However, his bandmaster, Frank Clermont, left the company, his partnership with Donaldson dissolved, and business was poor. In October 1901, the company launched its second season, with a roster of performers again led by the comedian Arthur "Happy" Howe (1873-1930), and toured in Alabama, Mississippi, Georgia and Florida. The show grew in popularity throughout the early years of the century, playing in both theatres and tents. Trading as Chappelle Bros., Pat Chappelle and his brothers, James E. Chappelle and Lewis W. Chappelle, rapidly organised a small vaudeville circuit, including theatre venues in Savannah, Georgia, Jacksonville and Tampa. By 1902 it was said that the Chappelle brothers had full control of the African-American vaudeville business in that part of the country, "able to give from 12 to 14 weeks [of employment] to at least 75 performers and musicians" each season.