When the song was published separately, it quickly sold 100,000 copies. The publishers made a considerable profit from it, net £2,100 in the first year, and the producer of the opera did well. Only Payne did not really profit by its success. "While his money lasted, he was a prince of bohemians", but he had little business sense. The song's American premiere took place at the Winter Tivoli Theatre in Philadelphia on October 29, 1823, and was sung by "Mrs. Williams." In 1852, Henry Bishop "relaunched" the song as a parlour ballad, and it became very popular in the United States throughout the American Civil War and after. As early as 1827, this song was quoted by Swedish composer
Franz Berwald in his
Konzertstück for Bassoon and Orchestra (middle section, marked Andante).
Gaetano Donizetti used the theme in his opera
Anna Bolena (1830) Act 2, Scene 3 as part of Anna's Mad Scene to underscore her longing for her childhood home. It is also used with Sir Henry Wood's
Fantasia on British Sea Songs and in
Alexandre Guilmant's
Fantasy for organ Op. 43, the
Fantaisie sur deux mélodies anglaises, both of which also use "
Rule, Britannia!". In 1857, composer/pianist
Sigismond Thalberg wrote a series of variations for piano (op. 72) on the theme of "Home! Sweet Home!". The song was reputedly banned from being played in
Union Army camps during the
American Civil War for being too redolent of hearth and home and so likely to incite desertion. It was a favorite of
Nellie Melba and
Adelina Patti, both of whom used the song as an encore piece. In 1926, a "Music Stair" railing (see image) at Chatham Manor in Fredericksburg, Virginia was designed by Washington, D.C.–based architect Oliver H. Clarke for the homeowners, the Devores. The ornamental iron railing features the first few bars of the score to “Home, Sweet Home.” The Village of East Hampton acquired his grandfathers seventeenth-century house, known as "Home Sweet Home," and the
windmill behind it, converting the
homestead into a
living museum in the landmarked
East Hampton Village District. The song is known in
Japan as ("My Humble Cottage"). It has been used in such movies as
The Burmese Harp and
Grave of the Fireflies. It is also used at
Senri-Chūō Station on the
Kita-Osaka Kyūkō Railway. Bishop's tune, though, is perhaps most commonly recognized in the score from
MGM's
The Wizard of Oz. The melody is played in a counterpart to "
Over the Rainbow" in the final scene as
Dorothy (played by
Judy Garland), after she had returned from the Land of Oz, tells her family, "there's no place like home". In the 1939 film
First Love, the song is performed by
Deanna Durbin. In the 1946
20th Century Fox film
Anna and the King of Siam, as well as in
Rodgers and Hammerstein's 1951 musical,
The King and I (and its 1956
film adaptation),
Anna Leonowens teaches her students to sing "Home! Sweet Home" as part of her psychological campaign to induce the
King to build her a house of her own. The 1955 Disney animated film
Lady and the Tramp features a dog-howling rendition of the song. ==Notable recordings==