Hillman Library CLOSED to the Public May 1–7, 2025

Emily Bingham, My Old Kentucky Home: The Astonishing Life and Reckoning of an Iconic American Song

Emily Bingham visit

The 1853 song “My Old Kentucky Home,” by Pittsburgh-born composer Stephen C. Foster, presented slavery as carefree while also telling a wrenching story of a man sold to die in the sugarcane fields of the Deep South. Join historian Emily Bingham on Friday, September 30 from 1–3 p.m. as she discusses her recent “biography” of the protested, altered, and mythologized song and the research she conducted at the Center for American Music.