It was published in February 1850 by F. D. Benteen and was introduced to the American mainstream by Christy's Minstrels, eventually becoming one of the most popular folk/Americana tunes of the nineteenth century.

The Bradford County Historical Society documents Foster attending school in nearby Towanda and Athens in 1840 and 1841.

The current annual running of the Camptown Races was replaced by a 6.2-mile (10 km) track covering rough lumbering trails.

[4] Richard Jackson was curator[5] of the Americana Collection at New York Public Library; he writes: Foster quite specifically tailored the song for use on the minstrel stage.

He composed it as a piece for solo voice with group interjections and refrain ... his dialect verses have all the wild exaggeration and rough charm of folk tale as well as some of his most vivid imagery ...

[6][7][8]The lyrics talk about a group of transients in a camp town who bet on horses to try to make some money.

Despite the minstrel tradition being widely considered racist, this and other songs written during that period have managed to remain standards in the American national repertory.

Can't touch bottom wid a ten foot pole, Oh, doo-dah day!

Foster's music was used for derivatives that include "Banks of the Sacramento", "A Capital Ship" (1875), and a pro-Lincoln parody introduced during the 1860 presidential campaign.

Both songs feature contrast between a high instrumental register with a low vocal one, comic exaggeration, hyperbole, verse and refrain, call and response, and syncopation.

The wife of the local postmaster suggested Irvington, to commemorate writer Washington Irving, which was adopted in 1852.

Louis Moreau Gottschalk quotes the melody in his virtuoso piano work "Grotesque Fantasie, the Banjo", op.

[17][full citation needed] In 1909, composer Charles Ives incorporated the tune and other vernacular American melodies into his orchestral Symphony No.

[18][19] As one of the most popular folk tunes, "Camptown Races" has been reference repeatedly in cinema, television and other means of media.

[21] The 1939 biopic about Foster Swanee River prominently features a performance of the tune by Al Jolson.

[24] Many Western films, such as Riding High, Blazing Saddles and Sweet Savage, feature brief singing performances of "Camptown Races".

[29] Country music singer Kenny Rogers recorded the song in 1970 with his group, The First Edition, on their album Tell It All Brother under the title of "Camptown Ladies".

[30] The chorus of "Camptown Races" was also featured heavily in 1998 by the band Squirrel Nut Zippers track and music video entitled "The Ghost of Stephen Foster".

Like many other American folk songs, "Camptown Races" is one of the most common jingles for ice cream trucks in the United States.