Doo-Dah!: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture

by Ken Emerson

Book Overview

"A colorful, panoramic view of 19-century American society--with P. T. Barnum, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Beecher Stowe, and Foster's relative President James Buchanan all glimpsed in the background. The author's enviably broad knowledge of pop music . . . allows him to draw provocative and intelligent parallels with figures from American culture past and present."--Washington Times

Stephen Foster (1826-1864) was America's first...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0306808528
• ISBN13: 9780306808524
• Release Date: August 1998
• Publisher: Da Capo Press
• Length: 416 Pages
• Weight: 1.33 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.1" x 6.2" x 9.2"

Customer Reviews

Doo Dah is the BEST BIOGRAPHY OF ALL TIME!!!!!!!

If you haven't read Doo Dah, buy it today!!!! Doo Dah was the best book that I have ever read in my entire life. Unfortunately, the book is not as good as the writer is handsome, and if it was it would be on the best seller list, and I know because he is my uncle. So, show your support of American culture and buy this stupendous biography, by the Master writer, the all time best, the one and only Ken Emerson.

Bow-wow!

This is another boonie dog book review from Wolfie and Kansas. Ken Emerson's book "Doo-dah! Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture" is well-written and informative. This is a "life and times" book, rather than a narrowly focused biography. However, the times of Stephen Foster, and the social and cultural history which Emerson discusses, are, like Foster's music, generally more interesting than the sometimes racist and alcoholic Foster himself.Our one complaint about "Doo-dah!" is the short shrift Mr. Emerson gives to one of Stephen Foster's biggest hits in 1857, a song entitled "Old Dog Tray". We would have like to have learned more about this song. Foster's minstrel songs were performed by white men in blackface. Was "Old Dog Tray" performed by humans in dogface?