On today's episode, Jennie talks with Petra Meyer-Frazier, a musicologist who studies 19th century American music and culture. She teaches at the University of Denver and is the author of the book Bound Music, Unbound Women. Petra studies how women make and curate music, and so we talk about why Foster became the iconic American songwriter, the one 19th century songwriter that everyone remembers. We discuss the classical models he drew from, the popular forms that he adapted for his own uses, and we dwell too with the controversies that have always attended Foster's life and art, from the disreputable blackface stage during his lifetime to the 2017 removal of Foster statues in Pittsburgh.
To learn more about the show and the book, visit our website at: www.StephenFosterAt200.com.