 While many of his vocal pieces were written for minstrel shows, the simple but effective melodies of his "songs for the hearth and home" are widely popular, often mistaken for American folksongs.By the end of the 19th century, serious American composers were travelling to European countries to study, especially with German and French composition teachers, and they gained a thorough understanding of Romantic style, including an understanding of the Lieder tradition.American songs written between 1870 and 1910 are often dismissed as sounding too "derivative", although the compositional craft shown in these works is quite high.