John W. Vogel

John W. Vogel (May 16, 1863-?) was a white minstrel-show entrepreneur and one of the most prominent of non-playing minstrel managers around the turn of the 19th century. After many of the original minstrel groups had stopped touring and the original actors and their original managers had died Vogel continued to prosper and make a fortune from the minstrel business. After the death of Colonel Haverly in 1901, John W. Vogel assumed the title of "Minstrel King," by which he has subsequently been known.

Early Life and Beginning in Show Business

John W. Vogel was born in Chillicothe, Ohio, May 16, 1863. Vogel’s first introduction to show business was working with the Sells Brothers' “Millionaire Confederation of Stupendous Shows” circus in March 1882. That same year he became the assistant agent for Thatcher, Primrose and West’s Minstrels in Cleveland, Ohio. He excelled to such a degree that he was made manager of the show.

Minstrel-show Success

John W. Vogel went on to manage the McIntyre and Heath Minstrels (1887–88), organized in Kenosha, Wisconsin. as well as other troupes before piloting many of his own well-known companies including McNish, Johnson and Slavin’s; Mcnish, Ramza and Arno’s; Primrose and West’s and McIntyre and Heath’s. Vogel most notably owned and managed the successful companies Vogel's Afro-American Mastodon Minstrels and John W. Vogel’s Big City Minstrels, of which the latter traveled and performed for over a dozen seasons. He also managed the Al. G. Field Minstrels for seven years. “In 1898, John W. Vogel’s Concert Company was considered “the greatest band of colored musicians in America”.

In 1897, Alfred Griffith Hatfield (black minstrel, clown, equestrian director, and proprietor), commonly known as Al. G. Field, leased his Darkest America Company, a black musical drama, after its second season to John W. Vogel, who took full control of it the following year.

A review from an 1897 mainstream daily paper provides a summarial description of 1890s plantation minstrelsy through description of the show: “In Darkest America” as presented... by Mr. John Vogel’s large and in every way meritorious company, was perhaps the best presentation of scenes intended to be depicted, taking the performance in all its details, that could be exhibited. The actors are in the main colored people, and from the fidelity which the scenes of the plantation in slavery times are produced, one would be justified in imagining that they had all served at least a liberal apprenticeship among the slaves of the past.”.

Through his success in minstrel shows, Vogel amassed such a fortune that he was able to own a winter home in Columbus, Ohio as well as a Summer home on his eponymous property, Vogel’s Beach, Buckeye Lake, Ohio.