Topic: Daniel Decatur Emmett

Daniel Decatur "Dan" Emmett (October 29, 1815 – June 28, 1904) was an American songwriter and entertainer, founder of the first troupe of the blackface minstrel tradition.

Of Irish ancestry, he was born at Mount Vernon, Ohio, then a frontier region.

After working as a printer's devil and serving in the United States Army, Emmett joined a circus troupe in 1835. In association with Billy Whitlock, Dick Pelham, and Frank Brower, he organized the Virginia Minstrels, which made their first appearance before a paying audience at the Chatham Theatre in New York City in 1843.