[1][2] His act drew on aspects of African American culture and popularized them with a national, and later international, audience.

Rice's "Jim Crow" character was based on a folk trickster of that name that was long popular among black slaves.

Rice received some formal education in his youth, but ceased in his teenage years when he acquired an apprenticeship with a woodcarver named Dodge.

By 1827, Rice was a traveling actor, appearing not only as a stock player in several New York theaters, but also performing on frontier stages in the coastal South and the Ohio River valley.

Rice also performed as the "Yankee" character, an already-established stage stereotype who represented rural America and dressed in a long blue coat and striped pants.

[8] During the years of his peak popularity, from roughly 1832 to 1844, Rice often encountered sold-out houses, with audiences demanding numerous encores.

Starting in 1854 he played in one of the more prominent (and one of the least abolitionist) "Tom shows", loosely based on Harriet Beecher Stowe's book.

[4] As early as 1840, Rice suffered from a type of paralysis which began to limit his speech and movements, and eventually led to his death on September 19, 1860.

[4] In the later half of the 19th century, a wooden statue of Rice in his "Jim Crow" character stood in various New York locations, including outside the Chatham Garden Theatre.

[15] It was painted and made in four pieces, with both arms and the right leg below the knee being separate parts screwed to the trunk.