Stephen Collins Foster

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Stephen Collins Foster was a native of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and is considered America’s first professional songwriter. In his short life, he wrote 286 works. Some of them are the most familiar songs of American history - “Old Folks at Home”, “Susanna”, “Camptown Races”, “My Old Kentucky Home”, and “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair”.

Stephen Foster was born around the time the minstrel show came into vogue. Today, his songs would be labeled racist. However, it was important to Foster to “humanize the characters in his songs, to have them care for one another, and to convey a sense that all people--regardless of their ethnic identities or social and economic class--share the same longings and needs for family and home.”

This website provides biographical information about Stephen Foster. In addition, it has a chronology of his life, an FAQ page, mythic beliefs and traditions about him, both an alphabetical and chronological list of his songs with lyrics, and a detailed look at “Old Folks at Home” with the meaning of the words and the significance of the song.