author
Al. G. (Alfred Griffith) Field
b. 1852
Best known as Al G. Field, he was a longtime American minstrel show performer and manager whose memoir preserves a vivid, first-hand picture of 19th-century entertainment life. His writing is part show-business reminiscence and part social history, with the voice of someone who spent decades on the road and onstage.
1 Audiobook
Watch Yourself Go By
by Al. G. (Alfred Griffith) Field
About the author
Born Alfred Griffin or Alfred Griffith Hatfield, and often billed as Al G. Field, he became a prominent figure in American minstrel entertainment in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. Sources differ on his exact birth year, giving either 1848 or 1850, but agree that he died in 1921. He is remembered both as a performer and as the producer behind the well-known Al G. Field Minstrels.
Field spent years in popular live entertainment, building a career that connected circus, touring performance, and minstrel production. That background gives his memoir Watch Yourself Go By its value today: beyond personal anecdotes, it offers readers a window into the routines, personalities, and changing culture of traveling entertainment in his era.
Because the historical record around him is uneven, even basic biographical details sometimes vary from source to source. Still, the broad outline is clear: he was a seasoned showman whose name became closely associated with one of the era's best-known minstrel companies, and whose recollections now survive as a useful primary account of that world.