Henry Clay Work composed the song “Come Home, Father” in 1864 to promote the temperance movement, a growing social reform movement that sought to restrict the consumption of alcohol. Work was a printer and self-taught composer who worked for the Root & Cady music publishing house in Chicago. As with other temperance songs at this time, he used sentimental imagery of the home to appeal to the emotions of audiences. The song is written from the perspective of a child named “Little Mary,” who pleads for her father to come home from a bar to be with her dying brother, “Benny.” Work would eventually publish over 80 songs, including the popular Civil War songs “Kingdom Coming” and “Marching through Georgia.”