Background

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.

Education

The boy attended schools around Pittsburgh and Allegheny and later enrolled in the academies at Athens and Towanda. He received an education in English grammar, diction, the classics, penmanship, Latin, Greek, and mathematics. But he was interested neither in schooling nor in business.

Foster was able to teach himself to play the clarinet, violin, guitar, flute and piano. He did not have formal instruction in composition but he was helped by Henry Kleber (1816–97), a German-born music dealer in Pittsburgh. Kleber was a songwriter, impresario, accompanist, and conductor.

Stephen attended Athens Academy from 1839 to 1841. He wrote his first composition, "Tioga Waltz" while attending Athens Academy and performed it during the 1841 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.

Foster's education included a brief period at Jefferson College in Washington, Pennsylvania, (now Washington & Jefferson College). His tuition was paid, but he had little spending money. He left Canonsburg to visit Pittsburgh with another student and did not return.

Career

Stephen tried a number of occupations, but none with much enthusiasm. 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.

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.

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.

Achievements

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  The American composer Stephen Collins Foster 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. 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.
  
  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.
  
  Two state parks are named in Foster's honor: the Stephen Foster Folk Culture Center State Park in White Springs, Florida and 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 also named in his honor.
  
  One state park is named in honor of Foster's songs, My Old Kentucky Home, an historic mansion formerly named Federal Hill, located in Bardstown, Kentucky where Stephen is said to have been an occasional visitor according to his brother, Morrison Foster. The park dedicated a bronze statue in honor of Stephen's work.
  
  The Lawrenceville (Pittsburgh) Historical Society, together with the Allegheny Cemetery Historical Association, hosts the annual Stephen Foster Music and Heritage Festival (Doo Dah Days!).

Works

More photos

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  • Stephen Foster -- Immortal Melodies: Piano/Vocal/Chords

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  • Stephen Foster Song Book
  • Stephen Collins Foster: Sixty Favorite Songs
  • Stephen Foster & Co.: Lyrics of the First Great AmericanSongwriters (American Poets Project)

Views

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.

Quotations: "Beautiful dreamer, wake unto me, Starlight and dewdrops are waiting for thee; Sounds of the rude world heard in the day, Lull'd by the moonlight have all pass'd away."

" The head must bow, and the back will have to bend, Wherever the darkey may go; A few more days, and the trouble all will end, In the field where the sugar-canes grow. A few more days for to tote the weary load, No matter, 't will never be light; A few more days till we totter on the road: Then my old Kentucky home, good-night!"

"Sadly I roam,Still longing for de old plantation,And for de old folks at home. All up and down the whole creation,Sadly I roam,Still longing for the old plantation,And for the old folks at home. All the world is sad and dreary,Everywhere I roam."

Personality

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.

Connections

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.

Father:

William Barclay Foster

(1779 - 1855)

He was the father of Stephen Foster and a notable businessman in his time. He has been referred to one of the most prosperous merchants of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. He was a Pennsylvania state legislator and served three terms. He was also elected mayor of Allegheny City (now part of the city of Pittsburgh) twice in his lifetime. He has been identified as a "patriot", a "lover of home" and an "outstanding servant to his community, state and government". He married Eliza Clayland Tomlinson on November 14, 1807, in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.

Mother:

Eliza Clayland Tomlinson Foster

She was born in Wilmington, Delaware and raised by her deceased mother's family-the Claylands in Baltimore. She is best known for being an early settler of Pittsburgh and the mother of Morrison Foster and composer and lyricist Stephen Foster.

Spouse:

Jane Denny McDowell Foster Wiley

She was born on December 10, 1829. She died at the age of seventy-three in a fire on January 17, 1903 in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She is best known for being the wife of Stephen Foster and being the inspiration for Foster's song Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair. Her archives are located in the University of Pittsburgh.

Daughter:

Marion Foster

(April 18, 1851 – July 9, 1935)

She was the only child of composer Stephen Collins Foster and, together with her daughter Jessie Rose, was the caretaker of the Stephen S. Foster Memorial Home located at 3600 Penn Avenue, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania from 1914 until her death in 1935. She taught the piano and occasionally composed music.

teacher:

Henry Kleber

(1816–1897)

References

• Doo-dah!: Stephen Foster And The Rise Of American Popular Culture
• The Life and Songs of Stephen Foster: A Revealing Portrait of the Forgotten Man Behind "Swanee River," "Beautiful Dreamer," and "My Old Kentucky Home"
• 150+ Stephen Foster Songs Songbook - Piano Sheet Music Book: Includes Beautiful Dreamer, Oh! Susanna, Camptown Races, Old Folks At Home, etc. (American Folk Songs Books) (Volume 1)
• Stephen Foster: America's troubadour
• A treasury of Stephen Foster