1 Forgetting Stephen Foster: The Mythology of a “Great American” Chelsea Carnes, University of Florida 3/15/2015 2 Page 2-Contents Page 3-Abstract Page 3-Introduction Page 6-Chapter One: Foster’s Personal Life and Privilege Page 11-Chapter Two: Foster’s “Plantation Music” Page 15-Chapter Three: Foster’s Political Music Page 19-Chapter Four: The Post-Mortem Foster Revival Page 26-Chapter Five: The 1960s Folk Music Revival and Stephen Foster Today Page 33-Conclusion Page 35-Appendix/Illustrations Page 37-Bibliography 3 Abstract This paper raises questions about the unchallenged reputation of American role models by focusing on the life and context of Stephen Collins Foster. By examining Foster, a 19th century American composer, and his biographies as portrayed by numerous historians since his death, I reveal the inconsistencies between the realities of Foster’s career, and the redacted story that is currently presented to the public. In placing Foster within the historical context of Civil War era America, studying his music, and tracking his legacy, I separate the truths of Foster’s life from the fictions, particularly emphasizing his participation in the exploitation of black culture through the musical genre of blackface minstrelsy. This essay illuminates how far from the truth historians and educators have strayed in order to protect and enhance the reputation of a famous “Great American.” Introduction On the 4th of July, 1826, Stephen Collins Foster was born in his family’s riverside home in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. This young boy who preferred music to school work and was writing waltzes by age 14 would go on to become one of the most famous and enduring composers in American history. Even 150 years after his death, most American children would be able to recite the lyrics to Foster’s “Oh Susanna,” Floridians and Kentuckians would instantly recognize “Old Folks at Home” or “My Old Kentucky Home” as their state anthems, and contemporary musicians from Bob Dylan to Sam Cooke would cover his “Hard Times” and “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.” Yet, at the same time as a 20th century folk revival 4 commemorated the composer, American historians and archivists would also participate in a national forgetting of some of the most important details of Foster’s life and legacy. By the 21st century, Americans would no longer remember that Foster’s most famous songs were actually written for black-face minstrel shows; Foster memorials would overlook his contributions to James Buchanan’s political campaign; the context of his popular tunes, most of which were written just before and during the Civil War, would be erased; and Florida politicians would go as far as altering the lyrics of their state song to corroborate in the creation of a vanilla Foster mythology. His history and legacy would be cleaned up and white-washed to fit neatly into modern narratives of an American role model. This erasure would be so effective that the 21st century Foster would hardly resemble the actual man who lived, wrote music, and died during one of the most developmental and important eras of United States history. In this paper, I will use Foster’s legacy as a case study to understand and criticize contemporary historians’ support of mythical narratives that often omit and redact significant character flaws of early American men of privilege and fame. Evidenced in the numerous monuments, parks, neighborhoods, museums, and even state songs honoring Foster, many modern historians and curators have chosen to selectively glorify specific deeds and contributions that elevate and inflate the reputation of a bygone individual, rather than approaching this “American hero” with an evolved critique appropriate to current sociological and political advancement. The result of this process is the creation of larger than life “great” Americans so untouchably sanitized and removed from historical reality that they actually serve as poor and un-relatable role models, defeating the initial purpose of their “hero” status. Stephen Foster serves as an excellent subject for this study not only because he is a famous white man of privilege who lived during some of the most formative years of our 5 country’s history, 1826-1864, but also because he established his fame by writing minstrel music, which openly mocked African Americans around the time of the Civil War. Over a century after his death and over 50 years after the Civil Rights Movement forced Americans to think critically about racial stereotypes and their harmful impact on our society, Stephen Foster has still been gifted long-term “great American” status in the form of dozens of monuments and tourist attractions.1 Importantly, he is to this day considered a role model for young Americans; at least 6 elementary schools scattered around the country bear his name2 and an annual Stephen Foster Scholarship encourages teenagers to participate in a vocal competition during which contestants must dress as Foster or his wife and sing two of Foster’s songs in order to win a $1,500 award.3 Even now, Florida continues to honor Foster by maintaining a 783 acre park in his honor, and numerous volumes of scholarship both old and new ignore the historical context of Foster’s heritage and instead contribute to his mythology by singing his praises, so to speak. Yet, it is in the lyrics of the very songs he is recognized for that the contradiction between modern American values and the truths of Foster’s legacy becomes so obvious. To study the case of Stephen Foster is to reflect on historical memory. This paper seeks to understand the hidden truths of a privileged white musician from the north and what the renaissance of his minstrel tunes beginning in the 1930s might say about U.S. identity. What are historians willing to edit, redact, or plainly overlook when identifying a long gone individual as a “Great American,” and how does this reflect our values as a nation? 1 The term “Great American,” used often in this paper, is pulled from the Hall of Fame of Great Americans, where a bust of Stephen Foster commemorates the composer’s fame at New York University. 2 Data.gov. “Public Elementary Secondary University Survey 2009-2010.” Data.Gov. Inventory.data.gov/dataset. Web. 11 Nov. 2014. 3 Stockton, Ann. “Jeanie/Stephen Auditions.” Florida Federation of Music Clubs. http://www.ffmc- music.org/jeanie.htm 3 Jul. 2013. Web. 01 Dec. 2014. 6 Chapter 1 Foster’s Personal Life & Privilege While most public exhibits and monuments, such as the Stephen Foster Music Park in Florida, tend to simplify Foster’s narrative by beginning with his life as an adult musician, I argue that in order to objectively understand the path of Foster’s legacy and the events that led to his status as a “Great American,” one must first undertake an investigation of the tumultuous era in which he was raised. To understand the relevance of the period Foster was born into and the influence contemporary political and social issues would have had on his character and work, one must start at his birth.4 Stephen Collins Foster came into the world on Independence Day, 1826, coincidentally the same day that two of America’s “founding fathers,”5 John Adams and Thomas Jefferson, passed away.6 Although Foster was born on the outskirts of Pittsburgh at a time when the city was just starting to expand into what one day would become an industrial center, he was only two generations removed from the frontier. His paternal grandfather, James Foster, was a Scotch- Irish pioneer of the west who settled in Pennsylvania when there was no ready-made infrastructure, at a time when white settlers like the Fosters lived in fear of and competition with 4 At this point, the paper begins examining Foster through a lens that includes and even focuses on his privilege. For more on this technique of biography, see Tim Wise’s book White Like Me. Wise encourages this process as a form of self-examination to understand one’s own privilege in order to become a more efficient anti-racist. This essay will apply the same technique to history. Much bibliographical history glorifies one man or woman without pointing out the benefits of privilege that led to their success. This can mistakenly leave one imagining that the strength of a great American’s character and hard work alone brought about their large achievements and that those who don’t succeed in the same efforts are merely lesser individuals, when truthfully, privilege often plays a very large role. 5 Quotations are used here because innumerable forgotten individuals played a role in America’s foundation and the term “founding fathers” although frequently utilized by U.S. historians, is not just paternalistic, but also incorrect, as it narrowly insinuates that the 57 men who signed the Declaration of Independence were solely responsible for the country’s liberation. 6 Howard, John Tasker. A Treasury of Stephen Foster. New York: Random House, 1946. 7 local Native American tribes.7 Concepts of white supremacy, the belief that light skinned people were superior and entitled to a higher rank in society than those with dark skin, would have been the common norm in families like the Fosters. Although during Foster’s lifetime Pennsylvania was a “free state,” throughout his infancy from 1826 to 1830, the Foster family had a full-time servant named Olivia Pise.8 Pennsylvania was the first state to establish an Act for the Gradual Abolition of Slavery, passed by the state legislature in 1780.9 However, the act was effectually more conservative than similar bills passed in other northern states.