Stephen Foster

Inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010.

The Stephen Foster Handicap, name in honor of the composer of "My Old Kentucky Home", is a Thoroughbred horse race run annually since 1982 at Churchill Downs, in Louisville, Kentucky.

Inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

Christy, and from whom the 1960's folk group The New Christy Minstrels took their name.

In the My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown, Kentucky, an outdoor musical, The Stephen Foster Story, has been performed annually since 1958.

Pictured on the 1¢ US postage stamp (as Stephen Collins Foster) in the Famous American/Composers series, issued 3 May 1940.

For all his success as a songwriter, Foster was, by at least one account, a man whose life was plagued by misfortune and unhappiness. When he died in early 1864, aged 37, probably of tuberculosis, it was in a third-rate hotel on the Bowery. Separated from his beloved wife and children, and long since lost in alcoholism, he died with only thirty-seven cents in his pocket and these words scribbled in a piece of paper, "dear hearts and gentle friends." Was it the beginning of a letter? The title of a new song? We will never know.

By 1857, he was in a creative slump and in such economic straits that he sold all rights to any future songs for just under $2,000. He and his wife soon separated, but this one was to last until his death. He moved to New York City, living alone and suffering from acute alcoholism, which only added to his financial problems. Songs of the Civil War being fought at the time did not prove as popular as his previous songs.

"The Old Folks at Home" (a/k/a "Swanee River") was written for Christy, and during the 1850's, Foster wrote most of his best-known songs, including "Camptown Races" and "My Old Kentucky Home.

" He married Jane Denny McDowell on July 22, 1850 and they settled in Pittsburgh, having one daughter, Marion. The troubled marriage was one of separations and reconciliations. During one such separation, he wrote "Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair," inspired by his estranged wife, and they reconciled after its publication. However, although Foster composed more than 200 songs in his lifetime, many still popular today, copyright laws in music were rarely enforced at the time and he made little money in his short life.

In 1849, he began writing songs for the most successful black-faced minstrel troupe of all time, led by E. P.

Stephen Foster was America's first professional songwriter of note. He was born in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, and developed musical talent early in his life, while still young beginning to compose in the style of Negro minstrel music of the day. His first hit as a professional songwriter was "Oh! Susanna," which he sold to a publisher for $100 in 1848.

It's perhaps appropriate that America's first great popular songwriter was born on July 4, 1826, the 50th anniversary of the signing of the U.S. Declaration of Independence. It was also on that day that two signers of that Declaration, as well as two of America's most revered Presidents, passed on: John Adams and Thomas Jefferson.