page_title: Stephen Foster
section_title: Minstrel songs
hierarchical_section_title: Stephen Foster / Minstrel songs
caption_attribution_description: Cover to early edition of Jump Jim Crow sheet music Thomas D. Rice is pictured in his blackface role; he was performing at the Bowery Theatre (also known as the "American Theatre") at the time. This image was highly influential on later Jim Crow and minstrelsy images.
context_page_description: Stephen Collins Foster was an American composer. He was the first American composer to be paid for his songs. Music publishers paid him for his music. He was born in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania which is now part of Pittsburgh. His parents were wealthy. His most well-known and successful song is "Oh! Susanna". It was first performed in the Eagle Ice Cream Saloon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1847.
  Foster married Jane Denny MacDowell in July 1850, They had one daughter named Marion. The marriage was troubled and the couple separated. Foster moved to New York City to do professional songwriting. He died in New York City on January 13, 1864. HE was 37 years old.
  Foster wrote mainly in three musical genres: plantation songs, parlor songs and Civil War songs.
context_section_description: The creation of the American minstrel show is credited to Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice, an actor whose performance of the song "Jump Jim Crow" in the dress of an aged African American created an overnight sensation in Pittsburgh. The tune was written down and given a piano accompaniment by W. C. Peters, a music shop owner in Pittsburgh.
  For many years, minstrels performed with circuses and traveling zoos. In the 1830s, they organized themselves into quartets, bands, and other ensembles and performed in theatres and other halls. One Nelson Kneass performed as a minstrel, but disbanded his group in Pittsburgh about 1845. He opened a hall with a stage at one end, and served refreshments for the price of a ticket. 
  Prizes were offered for the best riddles, etc. and a silver cup for the best African song. Foster was living in Cinncinati in 1846 and 1847, but his brother Morrison wrote him asking for a song. Stephen sent him "Way Down South, Where the Cane Grows". The song did not win the contest but set Foster on the road to minstrel songwriting.
  Foster wrote 28 songs for the minstrel stage. They differ substantially in subject matter and musical style from his household  songs. They are written in a negro dialect and their accompaniments suggest banjo-picking. Their musical style is sourced to African American music and the traditional and folk music of British Americans. Many of these songs were written for minstrel groups of the period such as the Sable Harmonists and the Christy Minstrels. 
  A typical minstrel song by Foster is set for solo voice with a four or five part chorus in the refrain and a short instrumental section intended for a dance on the stage. The best of these songs are "Oh! Susanna" (1848), "Nelly Bly" (1849), "Camptown Races" (1850), "Massa's in de Cold Ground" (1852), "Old Folks at Home" (1860), and "Old Black Joe" (1860).
caption: Thomas D. Rice in his blackface role (Cover to early edition of Jump Jim Crow sheet music, 1832)
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