Abolition Show, The (The Great Baby Show)

DESCRIPTION: "On the seventeenth day of September, you know, Took place in our city the great baby show; They shut up the factories and let out all the schools." A great parade goes through the town, with riders and abolitionists -- but Democrats will win anyway
AUTHOR: Words: Stephen C. Foster
EARLIEST DATE: 1856 (Saunders/Root; printed in the 1856 "Pittsburg Post," according to John Tasker Howard, _Stephen Foster, America's Troubadour_, 1934 (I use the 1939 Tudor Publishing edition), p. 261)
KEYWORDS: political nonballad
HISTORICAL REFERENCES:
1856 - Democrat James Buchanan wins the president over Republican John C. Frémont (who was regarded as an abolitionist by most Southerners). The song describes a Republican event in Pittsburg
FOUND IN:
REFERENCES (3 citations):
Saunders/Root-MusicOfStephenCFoster-Vol2, pp. 12-13+418, "The Abolition Show" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: John Tasker Howard, _Stephen Foster, America's Troubadour_, 1934 (I use the 1939 Tudor Publishing edition), pp. 262-263, "The Abolition Show" (1 text, showing the variants between the Pittsburg Post text and Foster's manuscript)
Evelyn Foster Morneweck (Stephen Foster's niece), _Chronicles of Stephen Foster's Family_, University of Pittsburgh Press, 1944, pp. 478-479, "The Great Baby Show or The Abolitio Show" (1 text)
CROSS-REFERENCES:
cf. "Vilikens and his Dinah (William and Dinah) [Laws M31A/B]" (tune & meter) and references there
NOTES [85 words]: A curiosity in the Stephen Foster repertoire: He wrote the words, but did not write a tune, apparently setting it to "Vilikens and his Dinah." Perhaps he didn't have time to think up a tune. Foster spent much of his life in Pittsburg, and was very much a Democrat (he was in fact related by marriage to President James Buchanan) -- and wrote songs for the Democratic party. This is a clear example. There is no sign that it went into oral tradition, but there were variant versions for particular situations. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.1
File: KPL454

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