Stephen Collins Foster's life has become part of American legend.
 
         In 1846, Foster began a period where he would write most of his best known songs, starting with "Oh! Susanna," which would prove to be the anthem of the California Gold Rush in 1848 and 1849. Other songs included, "Camptown Races" (1850), "Nelly Bly" (1850), "Old Folks at Home" (also known as "Swanee River," 1851), "My Old Kentucky Home" (1853), "Old Dog Tray" (1853), "Hard Times Come Again No More" (1854) and "Jeannie With the Light Brown Hair" (1854), written for his wife, Jane McDowall. Although many of his songs held Southern themes, Foster only visited the South once on a riverboat trip down the Mississippi to New Orleans, in 1852, on his honeymoon.

          As a professional songwriter of unparalleled skill and technique, he had made it his business to study the various music and poetic styles circulating in the immigrant populations of the new United States. His intention was to write the people's music, using images and a musical vocabulary that would be widely understood by all groups. Despite this, however, the music industry of the time was virtually non-existent, and Foster was practically destitute for his entire career.

     Foster died on January 13, 1864, at the age of 37. He had been impoverished while living at the North American Hotel at 30 Bowery, Manhattan, on the Lower East Side of Manhattan (possessing exactly $.38 USD when he died). In his pocket was a scrap of paper with only the enigmatic, "dear friends and gentle hearts," written on it.

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