Foster, Stephen b. 4 July 1826, Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 13 January 1864, USA. American songwriter and the first American to earn a living exclusively by composing popular songs. His works were enormously popular in the mid 19th century.

Foster grew up in a northern middle-class family and learned spirituals and other songs from a household slave, Olivia Pise. As a child, Foster performed for family and friends, his repertoire including many songs popularized by the minstrel shows of the time. He began writing his own songs and in 1841 abandoned all pretense of other activities, becoming a full-time songwriter. His first published song was a sentimental ballad, ‘Open Thy Lattice, Love’ (1844), his second was a minstrel-type song, ‘There’s A Good Time Coming’ (1846). These early works marked the two forms he would cultivate throughout his career, ballads (parlor songs) and minstrel songs. Many of his best-known minstrel songs were redolent of the imaginary life in the Deep South under the shadow of slavery, for example ‘Lou’siana Belle’, ‘Old Uncle Ned’ and ‘O Susannah’. ‘Camptown Races,” another minstrel song, became hugely popular and was used as a campaign song by Abraham Lincoln in 1860.

In 1850 he married Jane Denny McDowell, who was known as Jeanie and inspired his song, ‘Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair’. His songs continued to be successes, many of them now being featured by the Christy Minstrel troupe.

After the early 1850s, Foster devoted most of his energy to composing genteel parlor ballades, largely abandoning minstrel songs. He returned to minstrel-style lyrics in a handful of later songs published mainly in 1860 and 1861, notably “The Glendy Burke,” “Old Black Joe,” and “Don’t Bet Your Money on de Shanghai.” The most enduring song from this later period was another wistful ballad, ‘Beautiful Dreamer’.

The shift of public taste had a detrimental effect upon Foster’s career and his drinking habits worsened. His wife left him, taking their daughter with her, and he sank into severe ill health that was exacerbated by his continued drinking. Foster was hospitalized and died in January 1864. He was 37 years of age, and he had less than that number of cents on him when he died. Nonetheless, there is a remarkable durability to Foster’s livelier pieces, which rose above their questionable minstrel show origins. His own favourites, however, were his parlor ballads, which have withstood the test of time. They remain a significant milestone in the development of popular song in nineteenth-century America.