Clayton State Professor launches podcast series that examines the cultural impact of composer Stephen Foster, "the father of American music"
(June 28, 2026) - Dr. Jason Lee Guthrie, Associate Professor of Communication and Media Studies at Clayton State University, is set to launch a new podcast series entitled Stephen Foster at 200 that examines the cultural impact of the composer known as "the father of American music" on the 200th anniversary of his birth.
Foster was born on July 4th, 1826, the 50th Anniversary of the Declaration of Independence, and the same day that founding fathers John Adams and Thomas Jefferson died. The first podcast episode kicks off on Saturday, July 4th, 2026, and will be available on all major podcast platforms.
Dr. Guthrie discovered Stephen Foster’s story while researching the history of copyright in early America. While completing his dissertation, he looked at a few different figures including Benjamin Franklin as an author and a journalist and Mathew Brady as the most remembered photographer of Civil War photos. He also identified Foster as a key figure in the history of American popular music.
In this podcast, a closer look will be taken at the lyrics of Foster’s songs as they relate to the societal and racial tensions in the American South that were brewing in the period leading up to the Civil War. Dr. Guthrie is critical of some of the early examinations of Foster’s work and image noting, “for 150 years some scholarship has excused or minimized the racial aspects of Foster’s most popular songs. A lot of the early biographers were basically manufacturing evidence to say that his views on race evolved over time. So, this podcast will be punching some holes in that.”
The podcast will also highlight how the development of a truly American music and culture did not occur quickly after the birth of the nation on July 4, 1776. Dr. Guthrie observed, “We declared independence politically from the British, but we were still very British and a little bit European in culture. The major European composers were still by far the most influential. There's not much American music to speak of in the early national period.”
According to Dr. Guthrie, “Before the Civil War we remember songs like “Yankee Doodle.” We remember the National Anthem, of course. But beyond those, there's almost no American music we remember on a wide scale, apart from the handful of Stephen Foster’s most popular songs “My Old Kentucky Home,” “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” and “Beautiful Dreamer” would be among those.
The podcast will also look at the lyrics we may not remember from Foster’s popular songs and put them into the context of the culture and historical events at the time . Dr. Guthrie recalls, “I'm old enough that we sang “Oh! Susanna” in elementary school when I was a kid. We did not sing the second verse that has the N-word in it, and blithely references the tragic deaths of 500 African Americans.”
“Oh! Susanna” in particular demonstrated that music publishing could be a profitable industry. Dr. Guthrie said, ““Oh! Susanna” was Foster’s first hit and it was a successful in a way that no American song had ever been before. To sell 5,000 copies of sheet music at that time would have been a success. We really don't have any way to track how many were sold, but it was well over 100,000 copies. In many ways, it was the first “pop song” in American music.”
In this new podcast series, Dr. Guthrie and his co-host Jennie Lightweis-Goff will examine the factors that made Foster’s songs popular in the pre-Civil War era, from their live Blackface minstrel show performances that cruelly caricatured African American music and culture, to songs we remember hearing in cartoons over the past half century like “Camptown Races,” and “Swanee River.”
Was Stephen Foster a racist who exploited black culture in his rise to success, or was he the victim of a new and powerful music industry that pushed him to alcohol abuse that tragically ended his life at age 37? Maybe he was a tortured artist like Kurt Cobain or Edgar Allan Poe whose addictions drove their creativity. Tune in to the podcast and decide for yourself why we remember and debate his American musical legacy 200 years after his July 4, 1826, birth. Listen to the first episode of Stephen Foster at 200 this July 4th, 2026.