Stephen Collins Foster

Stephen Foster occupies a unique position in the history of music, not only of this country, but of the world. No other single individual produced so many of those songs which are called "folk-songs," by which is meant songs that so perfectly express the mood and spirit of the people that they become a part of the life of all the "folk" and speak as the voice, not of an individual, but of all. So completely do the "folk" absorb these songs and adapt them to their own uses, that the individuality