Along the banks of a north Florida river lies a park set aside to honor America’s first popular songwriter.
By Bill Vossler
April 2008
Many myths surround Stephen Foster. Some say this writer of “Beautiful Dreamer” could not read nor write music, scorned education, and had never been to the South. Yet he created 286 works, including some of America’s most treasured and popular songs: “Oh! Susanna,” “Camptown Races,” “Jeanie With The Light Brown Hair,” “Old Folks at Home,” and dozens more.
The truth is that Stephen Collins Foster, one of America’s first full-time professional tunesmiths, was privately tutored at home, showed a high aptitude and love for music, and probably received formal music training from Henry Kleber, a major influence in Foster’s hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. As for the charge of never having been to the South, there is no truth to it. Foster took a brief dip into Dixie on a month-long honeymoon steamship ride to New Orleans in 1852.
But with his rich imagination, sense of empathy, musical talent, writing ability, and desire to change how Americans viewed slavery, Stephen Foster made a deep impact on early American music, altered the minstrel stage, and even created the baseline for how American songwriters would get paid today.
Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park
In White Springs, Florida, along the Suwannee River that Foster made popular in song, is a beautiful preserve dedicated to remembering him. In addition to a museum and a carillon set aside in his honor, the park offers a variety of things to admire and explore, as well as a campground. Special events there mark Foster’s life as well as local traditions. Bicycling trails, both on-road and off-road, are available at the park, and canoeing and kayaking in the Suwannee River are popular. A hiking trail, which also is used for bicycling and horseback riding, winds along the river.
Visitors to the Stephen Foster Museum at this park enter a building that looks like a marvelous antebellum mansion. Immediately upon entering, visitors see large, backlit dioramas set in the walls that depict some of Foster’s best-known songs, among them “Old Folks at Home” (sometimes called “Way Down Upon the Suwannee River”), “Oh! Susanna,” and “Beautiful Dreamer,” as well as a couple of lesser-known compositions: “Old Dog Tray” and “Open Thy Lattice, Love.” The latter was Foster’s first-published work, when he was 18.
Delightful dioramas and more
Between the two of them, the museum and the Stephen Foster Memorial Carillon Tower (a mile down the road) house 10 dioramas depicting Foster’s songs. The dioramas are wondrous works of such great detail that you can stand mesmerized in front of them for long stretches of time. They include different moving parts, such as a steamboat, a paddle wheel, a chicken, horses in races, lights that turn on and off, and such wonderfully wrought miniature people, animals, and crops that they seem real.
The dioramas took 18,000 hours to build, equivalent to one person working full-time for eight years. But first they required a great deal of planning, research, and imagination. The first eight were completed by several different artists in two years. A brochure about the dioramas notes that everything was handmade specially for each individual diorama. For example, cotton bolls were all attached by hand; firearms in “Oh! Susanna” are historically accurate, with details such as an inlaid stock; and even the paddle wheel on the boat in “Suwannee” turns at the exact speed used during Foster’s days.
Large rooms in the wings of the museum contain other Foster memorabilia: one of Foster’s writing desks; a copy of the melodeon on which Foster created many of his songs; wall displays with prints of Foster’s sheet music; rare pianos of Foster’s time; paintings of Foster by Howard Chandler Christy, a well-known 1890s illustrator; and more.
The first floor of the Stephen Foster Memorial Carillon Tower, whose bells have been restored to play Foster’s tunes, contains several dioramas, as well as glass cases with photos of Foster, family members, and friends; parts of manuscript lyrics; illustrations about his songs; and much more. It is a true cornucopia of the life and times of Stephen Foster. The museum especially evokes a sense of quietude, as though a person should whisper instead of talking aloud.
Sweet youth
As a member of a secret male-only club during his teens, Foster, his brother Morrison, and close friend Charles Shiras met twice a week and sang songs. Scholars guess that “Oh! Susanna,” as well as some other early songs, were composed for this group, called Knights of the ST (most scholars believe ST stood for Square Table). Though “Open Thy Lattice, Love,” was published when Foster was 18, it was “Oh, Susanna,” published when he was 20, that had the greatest impact on him.
As an amateur, Foster realized the best way to gain an audience for his songs was through the popular entertainment of the time: the minstrel stage. “Oh! Susanna” quickly became a national hit. It gave him some leverage, since unlike other writers, he didn’t perform his own songs. At about this time, Foster left his job as bookkeeper for the steamship company one of his brothers co-owned in Cincinnati, Ohio, and decided to pursue his music career full-time. His imagination was sparkling, and his pen produced hit after hit.
But there were money issues. The 1849 gold rush was in full swing, and “Oh! Susanna” became the theme song for the ’49ers, who made up new verses as they headed to California’s gold fields. Copyright protections in those days were limited. Agents and rights fees did not exist. More than two dozen music companies pirated “Oh! Susanna” and printed it as sheet music, earning tens of thousands of dollars. For Stephen Foster, though, there was no way to find out how many sheets of music had been sold, no way to lay claim to other arrangers’ settings of his songs, or the broadside printings of his lyrics, so his total take for “Oh! Susanna” was a mere $100 from one Cincinnati publisher.
Foster soon realized he had to protect his artistic property, so he wrote out contracts in his own hand and had music publishers sign them. He kept detailed account books on how much he was paid. He also realized his money-making potential, so after each song was contracted, he calculated how much he might make in future earnings.
Foster also began to seriously change the minstrel culture, and he used the term “plantation songs,” nostalgic remembrances of family, to describe his music. Then he abandoned that for “American melodies,” as his tunes were good not only for the stage but also for the parlor, as singing was a great American pastime. His characteristic songs of the 1850s were “Old Folks at Home” (“Way Down Upon The Suwannee River”); “My Old Kentucky Home”; and “Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair,” written in honor of his wife.
Blame it on the Pedee
Foster was a meticulous writer, often working months to perfect the words to his songs, down to the correct preposition and location of commas. Pages from his sketchbook stand behind glass on the first floor in the Stephen Foster Memorial Carillon Tower. It appears he wrote words down hastily, doubtless so he wouldn’t forget them; then he crossed some out or changed others. One of the most fascinating examples of this involves one of his best-known songs.
While writing the lyrics to “Old Folks at Home,” he found himself displeased with the name of the river in one of the main lines of the song. It read, “Way down upon the Pedee River,” and though the Pedee was in the South (South Carolina), he didn’t like the sound of the words. As Stephen Foster’s brother Morrison wrote, “One day in 1851, Stephen came into my office, and said to me, ‘What is a good name of two syllables for a Southern river? I want to use it in this new song of ‘Old Folks at Home.'”
Morrison mentioned Pedee, then Yazoo, but Stephen said that had already been used. Morrison continued, “I then took down an atlas from the top of my desk and opened the map of the United States. We both looked over it and my finger stopped at the ‘Swanee,’ a little river in Florida emptying into the Gulf of Mexico. ‘That’s it, that’s it,’ exclaimed he delighted, as he wrote the name down, and the song was finished. He left the office as was his custom “” abruptly, without saying another word.”
The original manuscript of the lyrics in the Carillon Tower shows marks under “Pedee,” which indicate he wasn’t pleased with the word, and eventually they were crossed out and replaced with “Swanee” (the current spelling is considered more accurate).
Songs heard ’round the world
Dale Cockrell, professor of Musicology and American and Southern Studies at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, and an expert in 19th-century American music, said, “If you took all of the notes performed, and you counted them up and divvied them up by composer, Stephen Foster would be the most performed musician in the history of humankind. It’s not just an American phenomenon. I’ve heard Stephen Foster sung in Russian, in Zulu, in Japanese. I was once giving a lecture on Stephen Foster to a group of Chinese scholars who were visiting the United States, and I punched the tape player and ‘Oh! Susanna’ came on, and they all started singing along.”
Foster’s hometown was Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, where he’s honored at the Center for American Music at the University of Pittsburgh. The center has a huge collection of Foster memorabilia. Deane L. Root, director of the center, is quoted in the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review: “Of all the songwriters America has ever seen, none has stood like Stephen Foster. People of all ages all over the world may not necessarily know the names of the songs, or who the composer is, but the tunes are in their heads, which is an amazing testament to his work.”
Further Info
Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park is open year-round. It is located approximately 12 miles off Interstate 75 via State Route 136 and U.S. 41. The museum, carillon tower, and gift shop are open daily from 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. Admission is $4 per vehicle. Camping is affordable, and pets are welcome. Electric hookups are available, and the campground has new bathhouses. Call (866) 422-6735 or (800) 326-3521 for details and to make reservations. For general park information, call (386) 397-2733 or visit www.floridastateparks.org/stephenfoster.
More Area Campgrounds
Suwannee Valley Campground
786 N.W. Stephen Foster Drive
White Springs, FL 32096
(866) 397-1667
(386) 397-1667
www.suwanneevalleycampground.com
Kelly’s RV Park, C9903
142 N.W. Kelly Lane
White Springs, FL 32096
(866) 355-9600
(386) 397-2616
www.kellysrvpark.com
Lee’s Country Campground
2264 N.W. Thunder St.
White Springs FL 32096
(386) 397-4132