Stephen Foster’s life story was, for the good and the bad, typically American. Raised in a middle class family, Foster aspired to become rich and famous in pursuit of his passion—writing songs and lyrics. At a time when no American had heretofore made a living as a composer of popular music, he achieved unprecedented success. Even without audio recordings or radio, his songs were all the rage from coast to coast. He wrote dozens of songs that were well-loved in his day. Even more remarkably, many of his songs endure and are familiar to Americans of all ages. "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," "Camptown Races," "Oh! Susanna," "Beautiful Dreamer," "Old Folks at Home," and "My Old Kentucky Home" are songs that are well known today.

 
Great wealth, however, did not accompany his fame. Many people stood in Foster’s way: New York City publishers who took advantage of him, printers who made unauthorized (and royalty-free) reproductions of his work, and— not the least of all—Foster himself through poor financial decisions and struggles with alcoholism. On top of these troubles, Foster had a rocky marriage marked by lengthy separations from his wife and daughter. While this may have inspired some of his songwriting (“Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” is thought to be a love song written about his wife Jane during one of their separations), it made for an unhappy life. His meteoric rise to fame had an equally fast and tragic descent. He died penniless in a New York City hospital in 1864 at the age of 37.
 

An interesting chapter of Foster’s life is his involvement with the Buchanan presidential campaign of 1856. That year Foster became the musical director of the Buchanan Glee Club, a group that sang publicly on behalf of the Democrat’s campaign. For this group Foster composed several songs that either mocked the Republicans or promoted Buchanan. 
 
Prior to this, Foster had never publicly supported a political candidate, at least not through his songs. Although he came from a Democratic family (his father had been a Democratic legislator in Harrisburg and served two terms as mayor of Allegheny, Pennsylvania) his special interest in this candidate probably had more to do with his sister’s marriage to Buchanan’s brother. Additionally, the election of 1856 coincided with a dry spell in Foster’s professional career. It had been a few years since he had written a massively popular hit, and he may have been searching for a way to regain some notariety. Historians cannot quantify how much Foster’s songwriting assisted Buchanan’s campaign, if at all. However, his involvement is one example of the frequent intersection of American popular culture with politics.
 

To learn more about Stephen Foster, read the Stephen C. Foster Historical Marker  Essay
 For further context about Foster’s life and times, read Chapter 3: Pennsylvania 1820-1865: Expansion and Reform of The Power of Words: Writers and Publishers
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