CHAPTER 34
Marketing Music: Foster and Early “Popular” Song
OVERVIEW
Chapter 34 draws on the songs of Stephen Foster to introduce the larger repertory of popular
songs in nineteenth-century America. It places Foster and his music within the contexts of
minstrelsy and the economics of sheet music publishing.
LEARNING OBJECTIVES
1. To understand American popular song in the nineteenth century as incorporating elements
from the European cultivated and native vernacular music traditions
2. To understand the popularity of nineteenth-century American song within the contexts of
minstrelsy and the economics of sheet-music publishing
3. To understand Stephen Foster’s songs as emblematic of the nineteenth-century American
popular-song tradition
LECTURE SUGGESTIONS
1. Discuss with your students the definitions and meanings of vernacular and cultivated.
Consider the following questions to spark class discussion: How are the categories of
vernacular and cultivated applicable to music? What are some examples? Can we speak of
competing cultivated and vernacular musical styles? How are the categories of cultivated
and vernacular particularly useful for characterizing American musical traditions, both past
and present?
2. Display the lyrics to Stephen Foster’s Camptown Races on the board and explain to the
class the song’s nineteenth-century context within the minstrel show tradition. Ask students
to respond to the lyrics, emphasizing that one of the residual effects (among many) of
minstrelsy was its ability to communicate to whites—in a misinformed and stereotyped
way—the experiences of blacks slaves. When Camptown Races was published in 1850, the
slaves had not yet been emancipated. What is this song about? What messages and
stereotypes about the slave experience did it relay to the white audiences of the 1850s?
3. Before listening to Foster’s Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair, ask students to consider how
the song bridges the gap between the European art tradition and American vernacular
music. What musical and textual elements are aspects of both traditions?
ASSIGNMENT SUGGESTIONS
1. Before and for many years after the Civil War (1861–65), minstrel shows featured white
performers in blackface, acting out scenes and singing songs that supposedly portrayed the
experiences of slaves on the plantations of the South. Can you think of examples of
contemporary pop songs that reinforce stereotypes or misleading assumptions about certain
groups of people? What purpose do these songs serve? What do you think motivates people
to create these songs?
2. As the textbook mentions (p. 191), the song Happy Birthday is protected under copyright
law, which requires that in certain circumstances anyone who wants to perform the song
legally must compensate the copyright holder(s). What is the purpose of copyright law?
Who or what is protected under law in the case of Happy Birthday? Do you agree that a
company or person can be able to own the rights of a song whose author is no longer
living? Why or why not?
TEACHING CHALLENGES
Minstrelsy, with its upsetting racial narratives, may be the most challenging subject from the
textbook to teach. Although it is impossible to sidestep the difficult history of nineteenth–
century minstrelsy, class discussions on the subject are an opportunity to reflect on the
intersections between race (or racial constructions) and music, and you can easily extend th em
to today’s popular music.
SUPPLEMENTAL REPERTORY
Foster: Beautiful Dreamer, Old Folks at Home
T. D. “Daddy” Rice: Jumping Jim Crow
SUPPLEMENTAL BIBLIOGRAPHY
Emerson, Ken. Doo-Dah! Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1997. An assessment of Stephen Foster and his contributions to popular
entertainment in the nineteenth century. Chapter 6 (“Jumping Jim Crow”) explores Foster’s
own experience with the minstrel-show tradition.
Lott, Eric. Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. New York and
Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993. A fascinating cultural study of the minstrelsy
tradition in nineteenth-century America. Chapter 7 (“California Gold and European
Revolution”) addresses the songs of Stephen Foster and their multiplicity of uses in American
entertainment and politics of the mid-nineteenth century.
CHAPTER OUTLINE
Marketing Music: Foster and Early “Popular” Song (Chapter 34)
I. Music in Early North America
A. Cultivated repertories: “high art”
1. European immigrants brought cultivated repertories
a. operas, chamber music, and symphonies
B. Vernacular: “American popular identity”
1. lighter music: dancing, singing at home, public events, parades
2. popular: belonging “to the people,” great financial profit
C. “Classical” and “popular”
1. no clear distinction in 19th century
2. mutually influential traditions
3. cultivated and vernacular encountered in same spaces
II. Stephen Foster, Parlor Song, and Minstrelsy
A. Intersection between vernacular and European art tradition
1. parlor songs blend two traditions
a. opera and nostalgic “folk songs”
b. sweet, sentimental, nostalgic
2. amateur performance, parlor of middle class homes
3. popularized through minstrel shows
B. Minstrelsy: theatrical variety shows
1. stereotyping of African American culture
2. featured white performers in black face
3. widespread popularity in 1800s
C. Stephen Foster (1826–1864)
1. composer, born outside Pittsburgh
2. composed for Christy Minstrels, black-faced minstrel show
3. first to make living as professional songwriter, little profit
4. hit songs: Oh! Susanna, Camptown Races, Old Folks at Home, My Old Kentucky
Home
5. died a penniless alcoholic
D. A Song by Foster: Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair
1. love song, written for his wife, Jane Denny McDowell
2. two-verse poem by Foster, Anglo-Irish folk song influence
3. not popular during his lifetime
a. popularized in 1941, older music broadcast
4. themes of lost youth and happiness
E. Listening Guide 23: Foster, Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair (1854)
1. strophic parlor song, solo voice and piano
2. moderate tempo, quadruple meter, major key
3. homophonic texture, simple accompaniment
4. free cadenza in each verse
5. bittersweet tone, wishing for days gone by