Foster, Stephen

Cultural  

1. A nineteenth-century American songwriter. He wrote the words and music to some of the country's perennially favorite songs, including “Oh! Susanna,” “The Old Folks at Home,” “Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair,” and “Beautiful Dreamer.”

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Example Sentences

She knew her guests had studied the music of Stephen Foster in school, so she arranged for a group to serenade them with songs like “Oh! Susanna” and “My Old Kentucky Home.”

From The Wall Street Journal • Nov. 21, 2025

Mr. Sparks was quick to note that his group otherwise shared nothing with its namesake, a white group that had promoted the music of Stephen Foster in blackface.

From New York Times • Feb. 17, 2024

Using the language of the Cold War that was at its peak in the mid-1950s, Ethridge described the lyric substitution as “blacklisting Stephen Foster songs.”

From Slate • Jul. 5, 2023

The most recent recording he considers, from 2004, is a rendition of a Stephen Foster song that was composed in 1849.

From Los Angeles Times • Oct. 27, 2022

She had grown up singing the old slave songs called spirituals, the hymns she had learned in church, and songs by popular American composers, such as Stephen Foster.

From "The Voice That Challenged a Nation: Marian Anderson and the Struggle for Equal Rights" by Russell Freedman