Formulating Foster: Stephen C. Foster and the Creation of a National Musical Myth

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Christopher Lynch (Head of the Theodore M. Finney Music Library, Head of the Theodore M. Finney Music Library, University of Pittsburgh Library System)

Formulating Foster

Stephen C. Foster and the Creation of a National Musical Myth

Christopher Lynch (Head of the Theodore M. Finney Music Library, Head of the Theodore M. Finney Music Library, University of Pittsburgh Library System)

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English

Oxford University Press Inc
04 November 2025

Individual composers & musicians, bands & groups; Early modern history: c 1450 to c 1700; Modern history to 20th century: c 1700 to c 1900; Military history; American Civil War

Decades after his death, Stephen C. Foster's (1826--64) family and fans seized upon his birth on the fiftieth anniversary of the Declaration of Independence and his role in the burgeoning US music industry to mythologize him as a founding father in American cultural history. Hailing him as the father of American music and symbol of US democracy at the end of the nineteenth century required the collective forgetting of certain facts of his life, particularly his initial rise to fame through controversial minstrel songs depicting nostalgia for enslavement. In Formulating Foster, musicologist and librarian Christopher Lynch re-examines the myth of the founding of American music, drawing upon previously unknown archival materials and oral histories to uncover the myth's origins and expose the deliberate work of the Foster family and the wealthy philanthropist Josiah K. Lilly in embedding it in American institutions. By gathering and contextualizing all the remembrances written by acquaintances of the composer, Lynch lays out a roughly ninety-year process following Foster's death that gradually engrained the myth in American popular consciousness. Stripping away the myth's artificiality, Formulating Foster presents a richer, more humanizing portrait of the composer, illuminating important aspects of his life and character and proposing new ways to understand his music.

By: Christopher Lynch (Head of the Theodore M. Finney Music Library Head of the Theodore M. Finney Music Library University of Pittsburgh Library System)
Imprint: Oxford University Press Inc
Country of Publication: United States
Dimensions: Height: 24mm, Width: 156mm, Spine: 235mm
Weight: 689g
ISBN: 9780197811689
ISBN 10: 019781168X
Pages: 416
Publication Date: 04 November 2025
Audience: Professional and scholarly , College/higher education , Undergraduate , Further / Higher Education
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Active

Christopher Lynch, PhD, is a musicologist and Head of the Theodore M. Finney Music Library in the University of Pittsburgh Library System, where he helps curate the Stephen Foster Memorial museum and archive. His research examines minstrelsy, popular song, and music theater as sites for contesting American ideals. He is co-editor of Listening Across Borders: Musicology in the Global Classroom and his work has been published in numerous journals.