Back in September, when I was travelling in Kentucky, I read the book, “My Old Kentucky Home-The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic Song” by Emily Bingham. We drove by the state park and in prior trips to the area, I have seen the Stephen Foster Story. It is an iconic play in Bardstown, Kentucky. I am sure many of you also know that the song is still played at the Kentucky Derby, though with a major modification of words, including removing the reference to “darkies.”
The main theme of the book is that nearly everything surrounding Stephen Foster and this song are steeped in mythology. The Rowan family home in Bardstown became the mythical location where the song was written, though that is a very unlikely story. Stephen Foster is an enigma who died young and likely of alcoholism in NYC. He did spend time in Kentucky and was at the home briefly.
Madge Rowan, the Rowan daughter, became the one involved in creating this mythology. Her family had come upon financial challenges and then she married Jack Frost. Frost, whose grandfather was St. Louis’s first millionaire , was a pro-slavery Democrat who commanded a pro-secessionist paramilitary. He even coordinated with Jefferson Davis to seize St. Louis.
After Frost died, it was a man named Young E Allision, that came in and helped a widowed Madge Rowan Frost with her home which was by then called Federal Hill. He also resuscitated Stephen Foster’s reputation The state bargained Frost down to buy the estate. As all this was happening, Allison was literally in charge of newspaper propaganda. An entire mythology was created.
Still today, there is confusion about how Stephen Foster felt about slavery. He did not want to write plantation songs but that was what sold. There was an even an abolitionist named Stephan Foster that confuses the matter when anyone does internet research.
The author says that White Americans have always wanted and needed for Black people to authenticate the inauthentic. There was a time of trying to get Black entertainers to demonstrate that plantation songs emanate from them naturally. But some Black entertainers refused to go along with that. Henrietta Vinton Davis turned the song into black liberation through theatre. It was a protest.
Bingham said that “If we lingered over all of Foster’s words, perhaps we would come to some understandings.” By that, she means the original lyrics. Frederick Douglass thought the song could be useful in the way that Uncle Tom’s Cabin was useful. James Baldwin, on the other hand, said that “whites could read or watch the horrors but still say, “This has nothing to do with us.”
She says that “The song sanitizes the American past. What slavery built and stole is beyond calculation but not beyond admitting. The compromise of changing the lyrics are the nation’s compromises and they are not respectable. Giving up something we love can be a sign of love.”
I was thinking of this book as we drove across Kentucky and how people like to reimagine history to make themselves feel more comfortable. In Kentucky, I found a similar juxtaposition. Abraham Lincoln’s birthplace was dedicated in Hodgenville in 1912. And yet, in 1917, a 351 obelisk to honor Jefferson Davis was built in Fairview, Kentucky.
That monument to the president of the Confederacy is still there. I saw the sign while we were driving. I agree with Eleanor Roosevelt who said to study history realistically. You will still love your country just as much. But monuments are not history. They are, by their very nature, moral judgements of the past. We cannot and should not erase any of our history but we can change who we honor.
So much yes to learning our history. There is nothing wrong with admitting when we were wrong. We can only do better when we understand the past that brought us to where we are now. I wrote this about memorials a couple of months ago: https://sarahstyf.substack.com/p/why-memorials-matter