Stephen Foster

Stephen Collins Foster

(born July 4, 1826, Lawrenceville, Pa., U.S. — died Jan. 13, 1864, New York, N.Y.) U.S. songwriter. He began writing songs as a child, influenced in part by black church services he attended with the family's servant and by songs sung by black labourers. In 1842 he published "Open Thy Lattice, Love," and in 1848 he sold "Oh! Susanna" for $100; it quickly became an international hit. He later entered into a contract with the publisher Firth, Pond & Co. He was commissioned to write songs for Edwin P. Christy's minstrel show; his "Old Folks at Home" became one of the most popular songs of the century. In 1857, drinking heavily and in financial difficulties, he sold all rights to his future songs to his publishers for about $1,900. In 1860 he moved to New York; he died penniless at age 37, leaving about 200 songs, including "Camptown Races," "My Old Kentucky Home," "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair," and "Beautiful Dreamer," and he is universally regarded as the greatest American songwriter of the 19th century.

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Stephen C(ollins) Foster

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(b Pittsburgh, 4 July 1826; d New York, 13 Jan 1864). American composer of popular ‘household’ and minstrel songs. A selftaught musician, he produced c 200 songs, 1844-64. Most are simple, sentimental solo songs ‘of the hearth and home’, such as My old Kentucky home (1853), Jeanie with the light brown hair (1854) and Beautiful dreamer (1864). But his c30 minstrel songs are often strongly rhythmic, in African-American dialect and with a choral refrain and instrumental interlude; they include Oh! Susanna (1848), Camptown Races (1850) and Old Folks at Home (1851). He also wrote hymns and Sunday school songs.

Gale Encyclopedia of Biography:

Stephen Collins Foster

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The American composer Stephen Collins Foster (1826-1864) was one of the first professional song-writers in the country, and his minstrel tunes, particularly, were among the most successful songs of the era just before the Civil War.

Stephen Foster was born in Lawrenceville, Pa., near Pittsburgh, on July 4, 1826. His father had settled in Pittsburgh when it was still a frontier settlement; later he became a successful businessman. Stephen's mother was the daughter of an aristocratic family from Delaware. The youngest of the children, Stephen was loved by his family, who nevertheless failed to understand either his artistic temperament or his dreaming, indolent ways. The boy attended schools around Pittsburgh and Allegheny and later enrolled in the academies at Athens and Towanda. But he was interested neither in schooling nor in business. He tried a number of occupations, but none with much enthusiasm.

Young Composer

Stephen early displayed a musical talent, which his family persistently failed to take seriously. (In 19th-century America, music was viewed as an essential part of a young lady's upbringing but not a profession for middle-class boys.) About the age of 10 he began composing tunes, and at 17 he wrote his first published song, "Open Thy Lattice, Love," in several respects typical of the sentimental parlor songs he would produce over the next 20 years. Well suited to the genteel tastes of the time, this song is in the manner of an English air, with touches of Irish and Scottish songs.

Foster was sent to Cincinnati in 1846 to serve as bookkeeper for his brother's steamboat company. He disliked the work almost immediately, continued writing tunes, and soon met a music publisher. Four of Foster's songs, including "Old Uncle Ned" and "Oh! Susanna," which he sold for practically nothing, made so much profit for the publisher that Foster determined to make song writing his profession. He returned to Pittsburgh to enjoy his most productive years. As time went by and as his introspective disposition became more apparent, his songs became increasingly melancholic and lost much of the spontaneous fun and rollicking good humor of the earlier tunes.

Connection with Minstrelsy

While living along the Ohio River, Foster came in contact with the blackface minstrelsy so popular in pre-Civil War America. Many of the composer's best-known songs were written for the minstrel stage, although Foster actually preferred more polite, parlor ballads. For several years E. P. Christy, of the famous Christy Minstrels, had the official right to introduce Foster's songs, and at the composer's suggestion Christy took credit for "Old Folks at Home." Since there was public prejudice against African American tunes of this type, Foster initially sought to keep his name in the background. By 1852, however, he wrote Christy, "I have concluded to reinstate my name on my songs and to pursue the Ethiopian business without fear or shame." The composer entered into a publishing agreement with Firth, Pond and Company in 1849 which granted him standard royalties. Over the next 11 years Foster's total earnings from his songs slightly exceeded $15,000, most of this from sheet music sales. Always a poor businessman, the musician never realized the full commercial potential of his best music.

Domestic Life

On July 22, 1850, Foster married Jane Denny McDowell, daughter of a Pittsburgh physician. The couple lived for several years with Foster's parents and had one daughter. The marriage was plagued with difficulties, mainly resulting from Foster's impractical nature. In 1853, for unknown reasons, Foster left his wife and went to New York City. A year later the family was reunited for a few months in Hoboken, N.J. In October 1854 Foster took his wife and child back to Pennsylvania, leaving them again in 1860, when publishing ventures returned him to New York. He remained in New York, part of the time with his wife and daughter, until his death in 1864. At the time of his death he was living alone at the American Hotel. Taken with fever, he arose after several days of illness and fell, cutting himself on the washbasin and lying unconscious until discovered by a chambermaid. He was taken to a hospital, where he died on Jan. 13, 1864, weakened by fever and loss of blood.

His Nostalgia

Foster's tragic life was punctuated with financial and personal disasters. The gradual disintegration of his character almost literally ended him in the gutter. That he loved his home is indicated in his songs, for he probably reached his greatest heights as a poet of homesickness. Yet he was never able to achieve the domestic solidarity he longed for. His love songs are less plausible, mingling love with nostalgia, while the sweethearts of his lyrics are almost always unattainable, either dead or distant. The poet dwells on them only in memory. In "I Dream of Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" (1854) Jeanie is gone, and in "Beautiful Dreamer," his last love song (copyrighted in 1864), the love object is asleep. A few of Foster's nonsense songs have obtained lasting popularity because of their vital melodies. "Oh! Susanna" became the theme song of the forty-niners on their trek to California, and "De Camptown Races" with its "doodah" chant remains a perennial favorite.

View of the South

Foster's primary fame rests on his songs of the antebellum South, and taken song for song, these remain his best. At the time "Old Folks at Home" was written, the composer had never been south of the Ohio River, except, possibly, on visits to Kentucky. The name "Swanee River" was found on a map; Foster thought it sounded better than the "Pedee River" he originally intended. The musician's concept of African American life was gained principally from childhood visits to black church services and from minstrel shows. Not until 1852 did Foster make a brief trip through the plantation South on a visit to New Orleans with his wife. Certainly the African American element in his songs is slight, essentially shaped by the white man's sentimentalized notions of African American character. While Foster was an avowed Democrat and an opponent of abolition, his song "My Old Kentucky Home" was originally entitled "Poor Uncle Tom, Good Night" and bears certain similarities to Harriet Beecher Stowe's book Uncle Tom's Cabin. The song pictures happy "darkies," who when "hard times comes a-knocking at the door" have to part, as they are sent "where the head must bow and the back will have to bend." "Old Black Joe" (1860) reflects this same unrealistic view of blacks before the Civil War - a view widely held among Northern whites. Aside from his own sentimentality, Foster was writing for a market, and he produced songs to appeal to blackface minstrels.

Worth as a Composer

Foster's strength as a composer lay in his gift for poignant melody; some of his simplest tunes are among his finest. Since he had little formal training as a musician, his compositions sprang far more from his heart than from his mind and even occasionally fell into amateurishness. Pressed by financial considerations, he was never able to cultivate a musicianship of subtlety or depth. He was nevertheless adept enough to harmonize his tunes instinctively in a manner consistent with their overall mood - that is, quite directly and simply, allowing the melody to predominate. In this regard he has been compared with the Austrian composer Franz Schubert. Yet, unlike many of the professional musicians of the seaboard cities of the early United States, Foster did not imitate foreign models. The influences shaping his music were predominantly American, and therefore his tunes are perhaps as native as any produced in the United States during the early 19th century. At the same time Foster's songs are fundamentally human and are of fairly universal appeal. One American writer of the day, reporting on his visit to the Orient in 1853, said that he had heard "Oh! Susanna" sung by a Hindu musician in Delhi.

Foster composed over 200 songs. Approximately 150 were parlor songs; about 30 were written for minstrel shows. Of far lesser quality were his religious hymns published in 1863. Foster also wrote occasional pieces such as "Santa Anna's Retreat from Buena Vista," a quick-step for piano. Although his songs have often been spoken of loosely as folk music, in their sentimentality and nostalgia they reflect the temperament and character of their composer and fall more accurately into the category of popular art.

Stephen Collins Foster

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Foster, Stephen Collins, 1826-64, American songwriter and composer, b. Lawrenceville, Pa. His pioneer family was aware of his talent for music, but not understanding it they provided him with little formal musical education. Foster's knowledge of African Americans was drawn from minstrel shows, particularly E. P. Christy's troupe, for which many of his songs were written. Because of their utter simplicity, his black dialect songs are often thought of as folk music. Feeling that prejudice against these "Ethiopian songs" existed, he was at first unwilling to risk his reputation by having his name appear on them. He had little aptitude for business, and his income was never commensurate with the popularity of his songs. Excessive drinking and extreme poverty ruined his last years. He died in Bellevue Hospital, New York City. Although his work was occasionally banal, the songs that have remained popular, such as "Oh! Susannah" (1848), "Camptown Races" (1850), "Old Folks at Home" (1851), "My Old Kentucky Home" (1853), "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" (1854), and "Old Black Joe" (1860), are unpretentious and genuine.

Bibliography

See biographies by J. T. Howard (rev. ed. 1962) and K. Emerson (1997); M. Foster, My Brother Stephen (1932); E. F. Morneweck, Chronicles of Stephen Foster's Family (2 vol., 1944, repr. 1973).

Houghton Mifflin Chronology of US Literature:

Works by Stephen Collins Foster

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(1826-1864)

1848

Songs of the Sable Harmonists. This collection of songs is published while Foster is working as a bookkeeper in Cincinnati. It includes "Oh! Susannah!" and "Uncle Ned." It gains such widespread popularity that Foster leaves bookkeeping to become the most successful professional songwriter in the country.

Dictionary of Cultural Literacy: Fine Arts:

Foster, Stephen

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A nineteenth-century American songwriter. He wrote the words and music to some of the country's perennially favorite songs, including “Oh! Susanna,” “The Old Folks at Home,” “Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair,” and “Beautiful Dreamer.”

Wikipedia on Answers.com:

Stephen Foster

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For other people named Stephen Foster, see Stephen Foster (disambiguation).

Stephen Collins Foster
Stephen Collins Foster
Born	July 4, 1826(1826-07-04) Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, United States
Died	January 13, 1864(1864-01-13) (aged 37) New York, New York, United States
Occupation	Songwriter

Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826 – January 13, 1864), known as the "father of American music", was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century. His songs — such as "Oh! Susanna", "Camptown Races", "Old Folks at Home" ("Swanee River"), "Hard Times Come Again No More", "My Old Kentucky Home", "Old Black Joe", "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair", and "Beautiful Dreamer" — remain popular over 150 years after their composition.

Contents

1 Biography
2 Legacy
- 2.1 Music
- 2.2 Other honors
3 Movies
4 In popular culture
5 See also
6 Notes
7 References
8 Sources
9 Further reading
10 External links

Biography

Early life

Foster attended private academies in Allegheny, Athens, and Towanda, Pennsylvania. He received an education in English grammar, diction, the classics, penmanship, Latin and Greek, and mathematics. In 1839, his elder brother William was serving his apprenticeship as an engineer at nearby Towanda and thought Stephen would benefit from being under his supervision. The site of the Camptown Races is 30 miles from Athens, and 15 miles from Towanda. Stephen attended Athens Academy from 1839 to 1841. He wrote his first composition, Tioga Waltz, while attending Athens Academy, and performed it during the 1839 commencement exercises; he was 14. It was not published during the composer's lifetime, but it is included in the collection of published works by Morrison Foster. In 1842, Athens Academy was destroyed in a fire.

His education included a brief period at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania (now Washington & Jefferson College).^[1]^{[nb 1]} His tuition was paid, but Foster had little spending money.^[1] Sources conflict on whether he left willingly or was dismissed;^[3] but, either way, he left Canonsburg to visit Pittsburgh with another student and didn't return.^[1]

During his teenage years, Foster was influenced greatly by two men. Henry Kleber (1816–1897), one of Stephen’s few formal music instructors, was a classically trained musician who emigrated from Darmstadt, Germany, to Pittsburgh and opened a music store. Dan Rice was an entertainer, a clown and blackface singer, making his living in traveling circuses. Although respectful of the more civilized parlor songs of the day, he and his friends would often sit at a piano, writing and singing minstrel songs through the night. Eventually, Foster would learn to blend the two genres to write some of his best-known work.

A Career in Music

In 1846, Foster moved to Cincinnati, Ohio, and became a bookkeeper with his brother's steamship company. While in Cincinnati, Foster penned his first successful songs, among them "Oh! Susanna" which would prove to be the anthem of the California Gold Rush in 1848–1849. In 1849, he published Foster's Ethiopian Melodies, which included the successful song "Nelly Was a Lady", made famous by the Christy Minstrels. A plaque marks the site of Foster's residence in Cincinnati, where the Guilford School building is now located.

Then he returned to Pennsylvania and signed a contract with the Christy Minstrels. It was during this period that Foster would write most of his best-known songs: "Camptown Races" (1850), "Nelly Bly" (1850), "Old Folks at Home" (known also as "Swanee River", 1851), "My Old Kentucky Home" (1853), "Old Dog Tray" (1853), and "Jeanie With the Light Brown Hair" (1854), written for his wife Jane Denny McDowell.

Many of Foster's songs were of the blackface minstrel show tradition popular at the time. Foster sought, in his own words, to "build up taste ... among refined people by making words suitable to their taste, instead of the trashy and really offensive words which belong to some songs of that order."

Although many of his songs had Southern themes, Foster never lived in the South and visited it only once, by river-boat voyage (on his brother Dunning's steam boat, the Millinger) down the Mississippi to New Orleans, during his honeymoon in 1852.

Foster attempted to make a living as a professional songwriter and may be considered innovative in this respect, since this field did not yet exist in the modern sense. Due in part to the limited scope of music copyright and composer royalties at the time, Foster realized very little of the profits which his works generated for sheet music printers. Multiple publishers often printed their own competing editions of Foster's tunes, not paying Foster anything. For "Oh, Susanna", he received $100.

Foster moved to New York City in 1860. About a year later, his wife and daughter left him and returned to Pittsburgh. Beginning in 1862, his fortunes decreased, and as they did, so did the quality of his new songs. Early in 1863, he began working with George Cooper, whose lyrics were often humorous and designed to appeal to musical theater audiences. The Civil War created a flurry of newly written music with patriotic war themes, but this did not benefit Foster.

Death

Stephen Foster had become impoverished while living at the North American Hotel at 30 Bowery on the Lower East Side of Manhattan, New York. He was reportedly confined to his bed for days by a persistent fever; Foster tried to call a chambermaid, but collapsed, falling against the washbasin next to his bed and shattering it, which gouged his head. It took three hours to get him to Bellevue Hospital. In an era before transfusions and antibiotics, he succumbed three days after his admittance, aged 37.^{[citation needed]}

In his worn leather wallet, there was found a scrap of paper that simply said "Dear friends and gentle hearts" along with 38 cents in Civil War scrip and three pennies. Foster was buried in the Allegheny Cemetery in Pittsburgh. One of his most beloved works, "Beautiful Dreamer", was published shortly after his death.^{[citation needed]}

Legacy

Music

	"Oh! Susanna" (1848) Stephen Foster's "Oh! Susanna" performed by the United States Navy Concert Band "Old Folks at Home" "Old Folks at Home" performed by Ernestine Schumann-Heink (1918)
Problems listening to these files? See media help.

Foster is acknowledged as "father of American music".^[4] He was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970, and he was also inducted into the Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2010.

"My Old Kentucky Home" is the official state song of Kentucky, adopted by the General Assembly on March 19, 1928. "Old Folks at Home" is the official state song of Florida, designated in 1935, but has been replaced as state anthem by Florida (Where the Sawgrass Meets the Sky)

American Baritone Nelson Eddy recorded 35 Foster songs over three recording sessions in July, August and September 1947 on Columbia records, in 78 format, 2 songs per record. Columbia Records issued these recordings in 1948, "Nelson Eddy in Songs of Stephen Foster (Volume 1: A-745 and Volume 2: A-795)". In 2005 Jasmine Records compiled all 35 Foster songs in one CD, "Nelson Eddy Sings The Stephen Foster Songbook" JASCD 421. "In these performances, arranger/conducter Robert Armbruster made every attempt to frame Nelson Eddy's voice with a simple, yet colorful, orchestral and choral background - the norm of Stephen Foster's time." (Liner notes by Robert Nickora July 2005).

American classical composer Charles Ives freely quoted a wide variety of Foster's songs in many of his own works.

Poet and producer Jimmy Spice Curry remade the Stephen Foster classic "Beautiful Dreamer".

Douglas Jimerson, a tenor from Baltimore who has released CDs of music from the Civil War era, released Stephen Foster's America in 1998. Just before his death in 2004, singer-songwriter Randy Vanwarmer completed an entire album of Stephen Foster songs. It was released posthumously as Sings Stephen Foster.

Eighteen of Foster's compositions were recorded and released on the Beautiful Dreamer: The Songs of Stephen Foster collection. Among the artists who are featured on the album are John Prine, Ron Sexsmith, Alison Krauss, Yo Yo Ma, Roger McGuinn, Mavis Staples, and Suzy Bogguss. The album won the Grammy for Best Traditional Folk Album in 2005.

Singer/songwriter Syd Straw covered Hard Times Come Again No More on her 1989 album "Surprise."

A Squirrel Nut Zippers song titled "The Ghost of Stephen Foster" features references to his most famous works, including "Camptown Races".

Other honors

This section does not cite any references or sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (November 2011)

Foster is honored on the University of Pittsburgh campus with the Stephen Foster Memorial, a landmark building that houses the Stephen Foster Memorial Museum, the Center for American Music, as well as two theaters: the Charity Randall Theatre and Henry Heymann Theatre, both performance spaces for Pitt's Department of Theater Arts. It is the largest repository for original Stephen Foster compositions, recordings, and other memorabilia his songs have inspired world-wide.

A public sculpture by Giuseppe Moretti honoring Stephen Foster and commemorating his song "Uncle Ned" sits in close proximity to the Stephen Foster Memorial.

In My Old Kentucky Home State Park in Bardstown, Kentucky, a musical, called Stephen Foster-The Musical has been performed since 1958. There is also a statue of him next to the Federal Hill mansion, where he visited relatives and is the inspiration for "My Old Kentucky Home".

The Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park in White Springs, Florida is a Florida State Park named in his honor, as is Stephen C. Foster State Park in Georgia. Both parks are on the Suwannee River.

Stephen Foster Lake at Mount Pisgah State Park in Pennsylvania is named in his honor.

In Alms Park in Cincinnati, overlooking the Ohio River, there is a seated statue of him.

The Lawrenceville (Pittsburgh) Historical Society, together with the Allegheny Cemetery Historical Association, hosts the annual Stephen Foster Music and Heritage Festival (Doo Dah Days!). Held the first weekend of July, Doo Dah Days! celebrates the life and music of one the most influential songwriters in America's history. His home in the Lawrenceville Section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania still remains on Penn Avenue nearby the Stephen Foster Community Center.

36 U.S.C. §140 designates January 13 as Stephen Foster Memorial Day, a United States National Observance. In 1936, Congress authorized the minting of a silver half dollar in honor of the Cincinnati Musical Center. Stephen Foster was featured on the obverse of the coin despite his tenuous links to the city.

Movies

Three Hollywood movies have been made of Foster's life: Harmony Lane (1935) with Douglass Montgomery, Swanee River (1939) with Don Ameche, and I Dream of Jeanie (1952), with Bill Shirley. The 1939 production was one of Twentieth Century Fox's more ambitious efforts, filmed in Technicolor; the other two were low-budget affairs made by B-movie studios.

In popular culture

Journalist Nellie Bly took her pseudonym from the title character of Foster's song "Nelly Bly".
"Stephen Foster Super Saturday" is a day of thoroughbred racing during the Spring/Summer meet at Churchill Downs in Louisville, Kentucky. During the call to the post, selections of Stephen Foster songs are played by the track bugler, Steve Buttleman. The day is headlined by the Stephen Foster Handicap a Grade I dirt race for older horses at 9 furlongs.
Two television shows about the life of Stephen Foster and his childhood friend (and later wife) Jeanie MacDowell were produced in Japan, the first in 1979 with 13 episodes, and the second from 1992 to 1993 with 52 episodes, and both were called Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair after the song of the same name.
In the Honeymooners episode, "The $99,000 Answer", Ed Norton warms up on the piano by playing the opening to "Swanee River". Later, when Ralph returns to the gameshow, the first question asked is "Who is the composer of 'Swanee River'," to which Ralph nervously responds with "Ed Norton" and immediately loses the game.
In the film "Tombstone", Billy Clanton (played by Thomas Hayden Church) tries to guess who wrote the song being played by Doc Holiday (Val Kilmer) "...That sounds like Old Dog Tray...Camptown Races? Oh Susanna? Stephen Stinkin Foster?"
The Band "Squirrel Nut Zippers" has as song entitled "Ghost of Stephen Foster"
Erika M Anderson of the band EMA says in reference to Foster's "Camptown Races", "I bet my money on the bobtail nag/somebody bet on the bay" in the song "California" from her 2011 release "Past Life Martyred Saints".^[5]
David Berman of the Silver Jews sings the lyric "Her doorbell plays a bar of Stephen Foster" in the song Tennessee, which appeared on the 2001 album Bright Flight.^[6]

Notes

^ His grandfather, James Foster, was an associate of John McMillan and a founding trustee of Canonsburg Academy, a predecessor institution to Jefferson College; his father, William Barclay Foster, attended Canonsburg Academy until the age of 16.^[2]

References

^ ^a ^b ^c Emerson, Ken (1998). Doo-dah! Steven Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture. Da Capo Press. p. 79. ISBN 9780306808524. http://books.google.com/books?id=Ousn0lWqeisC&printsec=frontcover#PPA78,M1.
^ Vincent Milligan, Harold (1920). Stephen Collins Foster: a biography of America's folk-song composer. G. Schirmer. pp. 3–4. http://books.google.com/books?id=NvIHAQAAMAAJ&pg=PA4.
^ "Did You Know?". washjeff.edu. Washington & Jefferson College. http://www.washjeff.edu/content.aspx?section=372&menu_id=133&crumb=137&id=61.
^ "The Lyrics And Legacy Of Stephen Foster". NPR. http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=126035325. Retrieved 29 June 2010.
^ http://www.songlyrics.com/e-m-a/california-lyrics/
^ http://lyrics.is/song-tennessee-lyrics-silver-jews.html

Sources

Emerson, Ken (1998). Doo Dah!: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture. De Capo Press. ISBN 0-306-80852-8.
Hamm, Charles (1979). Yesterdays: Popular Song in America (Chapter 10, "Old Folks at Home, or, the Songs of Stephen Foster"). W. W. Norton & Company. ISBN 0-393-01257-3.

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Stephen Foster

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Stephen Foster

Free scores by Stephen Foster at the International Music Score Library Project
Stephen Foster at the Internet Movie Database
Stephen Foster at Find a Grave

Persondata
Name	Foster, Stephen
Alternative names
Short description	American songwriter, minstrel and composer
Date of birth	1826-07-04
Place of birth	Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, U.S.
Date of death	1864-01-13
Place of death	New York, New York, U.S.

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Stephen Foster

Stephen Collins Foster

Stephen C(ollins) Foster

Stephen Collins Foster

Stephen Collins Foster

Works by Stephen Collins Foster

Foster, Stephen

Stephen Foster

Biography

Early life

A Career in Music

Death

Legacy

Music

Other honors

Movies

In popular culture

See also

Notes

References

Sources

Further reading

External links