Collections

The David Galt Greenwald board games and puzzles collection consists of black Americana board games, puzzles, card games, and ephemera. Series 1 consists of boxed games, puzzles, and toys, largely depicting racist caricatures, including minstrel/blackface imagery, stereotypes, propaganda, and sometimes anti-black violence. Other items in Series 1 depict black empowerment, history, heritage, culture, and collaboration. Series 2 consists of entertainment-related or associated ephemera, including paper board games and puzzles, toys, a stereoview, a watercolor booklet, Court Whist scorecards, promotional material, and pages of a 1883 almanac. The majority, but not all, of these materials likewise feature minstrel/blackface imagery and racist caricatures and stereotypes. These materials offer insight into the cohesive use and promotion of racist imagery, stereotypes, and rhetoric through entertainment media in the 19th and 20th centuries in the United States and Europe. These materials also offer insight into the use of physical entertainment media during the 20th century to educate the public about the Black Power movement, and black community, history, heritage, and empowerment. Additionally, the collection may offer insights into the sale and popularity of black Americana materials between the 19th and early 21st centuries, with at least one board game likely being a 21st century "hoax" using historical anti-black imagery to feign its true age.