University Times

Composer Stephen Foster’s personal sketchbook — containing the draft texts of some of his most famous song lyrics as he wrote them in the 1850s — is now on line for the public to view.

Part of the Foster Hall Collection in the University’s Center for American Music, the sketchbook includes the draft texts for 64 songs, including “Old Folks at Home” and “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair.”

This past spring, the sketchbook was digitized by the Digital Image Archive of Medieval Manuscripts in Oxford, England. Through Pitt’s Digital Research Library, the pages now are available for viewing on line at http://images.library.pitt.edu/s/sketchbook.