Page "Blackface" Paragraph 12

The songs of northern composer Stephen Foster figured prominently in blackface minstrel shows of the period.

Though written in dialect and certainly politically incorrect by today's standards, his later songs were free of the ridicule and blatantly racist caricatures that typified other songs of the genre.

Foster's works treated slaves and the South in general with an often cloying sentimentality that appealed to audiences of the day.