Ragtime, is a syncopated musical style, one forerunner of jazz and the predominant style of American popular music from about 1899 to 1917. Ragtime evolved in the playing of honky-tonk pianists along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers in the last decades of the 19th century. It was influenced by minstrel-show songs, blacks’ banjo styles, and dances like the cakewalk.
Ragtime was the beginning stage of Jazz music, and essentially curated from piano music. During this era, black people in the south truly ran the sound, but quickly transcended up North where white people (yankees) loved.
Ragtime originated in African American musical communities, in the late 19th century, and descended from the jigs and marches played by all-black bands common in all Northern cities with black populations (van der Merwe 1989, p.63). By the start of the 20th century it became widely popular throughout North America and was listened and danced to, performed, and written by people of many different subcultures. A distinctly American musical style, ragtime may be considered a synthesis of African-American syncopation and European classical music, though this description is oversimplified
Sources: https://www.britannica.com/art/ragtime
https://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Ragtime
https://www.loc.gov/item/ihas.200035811
