Stephen S. Foster
1826-1864
As a child in the 1950’s, I grew up learning that Stephen Collins Foster was considered the father of American music. Born in 1826, Foster achieved a solid education in the classics and spent a short time in Jefferson College in Pennsylvania but left after a short period of study. While working for a shipping company in Cincinnati, in 1849 he began to publish Parlor Music, most noteworthy was “Oh Susanna.” He also liked the black face Minstrel Shows and wrote many hits. He attempted to compose full-time around 1850.
[Wikipedia defines parlor music, or parlour music, as " a type of popular music which, as the name suggests, is intended to be performed in the parlours of middle-class homes by amateur singers and pianists. Disseminated as sheet music, its heyday came in the 19th century, as a result of a steady increase in the number of households with enough surplus cash to purchase musical instruments and instruction in music, and with the leisure time and cultural motivation to engage in recreational music-making. Its popularity waned in the 20th century as the phonograph record and radio replaced sheet music as the most common method of dissemination of popular music." See Parlor Music
"Foster belongs to a class of songwriters whose melodies are more familiar than the names of their composers. Many people think Foster’s melodies came from traditional American folk songs. They did not, except perhaps in a most indirect way" (Tomaschewski).
The Civil War brought an abrupt change to a number of his songs. Foster also wrote his share of patriotic war songs like “Nothing but an Old Soldier” (sung by a Revolutionary War veteran) and “I’ll be a Soldier.” However, his songs moved from “Old Black Joe” minstrel type songs to the haunting “Was My Brother in the Battle?” and “My Boy is Coming Home from the War.” It is these songs that hold a strong hold on 21st century America.
Foster's career as a composer/lyricist was one massive financial struggle. The lack of copyright protections and disreputable piracy (to use 21st century terms) of publishing houses caused great financial and familial distress. In this respect, his life and career resembles another innovator, Edgar Allen Poe. Like the poet, Foster's life was embedded in poverty and family crisis. Unlike Poe, Foster's family life was rocky; his wife and daughter had left him soon before his death for financial reasons, and he died alone. Foster and his wife were, by supporters of each spouse, incompatible. She had no understanding of his temperament or his profession. She felt he should be a clerk with a regular salary. This conflict lead to Foster often staying out late and carousing with friends and family. His diaries, according to Ken Emerson's biography of Foster, expressed this distress' negative impact on his compositions (the 20th century writer James Joyce also suffered domestic conflict due to his wife's contempt for his profession) . Nonetheless, their bond must have been sincere, for they made numerous attempts at reconciliation and domestic life.
Foster's career also suffered lack of financial rewards, similar to that of Poe: poor copyright laws, lack of protection, and a lack of business acumen. If he had worked under present day laws, he would have earned over $10,000,000 (in 19th century money) during his lifetime. Beyond his financial and domestic strife, Foster suffered two personal crises. First was his reading of the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The book shattered his innocence about the nature of slavery and lives of African Americans in general. Foster shared the generalized racism of the 19th century, but he was no bigot as we understand the term in the 21st century. He often worked with showman and promoters to soften the harsh bigotry of most Minstrel shows, at times demanding that the actors in Blackface show understanding--if not compassion--for their black characters. Yet, yet he loved Black Face minstrel shows as a musical form and a means of making money. This confrontation between his love for the music and the financial rewards collided against the lies spread by Minstrel Shows led to Foster's slowly altered his joyous, raucous Minstrel music (for the most part, his most profitable source of income) into ballads expressing an overriding sense of loss and homelessness.
The emotional turmoil found an another outlet during the 1856 Presidential campaign; he wrote political copy and songs for the Doughface Democrats who felt that keeping the South in the Union was, well, stupid. He lashed out with great energy. However, Foster in general was non-political unlike most of his extended family who were traditional Democrats with a dislike of the Republican Party and particularly Abolitionists. His music was anything but supportive of the Southern cause. The experience left him frustrated with himself. To use literary terminology, Foster was a Romantic sentimentalist faced with a growing presence of Realism. Like Poe after the death of Virginia, Foster's creative force was shattered. Frustrated, angry, and broke, he turned to destructive habits including drinking binges, writing music quickly and selling his work cheaply. The lack of financial rewards for his work, s broken marriage, and depression brought on by the Civil War, he spiraled down.
For a time, he teamed up with a lyricist George Cooper; the pair wrote too hits quite popular today: "My Wife is a Most Knowing Woman" and "If you only had a Moustache." Actually, Foster was in the vanguard of the new variety music shows. Two of his war-time songs still rank high in popular music: "Willie Has Gone to War" and "Was my Brother in the Battle." Other discounted songs are more respected by musicians and the public now than biographers, musicologists, and historians.
By 1863, Foster's life was in tatters. His health was failing, he lost pride in his work, often mocking it and himself. Near the end, his creativity, health, and native talent lay in ashes. However, one dying ember flared into brilliant flame, unsurpassed even by himself at his creative prime: "Beautiful Dreamer." Supported by primary sources, many of Foster's biographers believe his 'Beautiful Dreamer' was not just a sentimental love ballad; it was love song to America, the country where dreams could be fulfilled. But, America of dreams was asleep in the nightmare of the Civil War. He wished this dreamer would awake--for him. If Walt Whitman were ever aware of this song, he would have understood its meaning's depth.
His behavior continued to self-destruct. Starving and weak, he feel hitting and cutting his head and cutting his neck. Hours later, he was found, and he died soon thereafter. Like Poe, he pathetically died broke and in delirium. At their deaths, they both were recognized immediately as geniuses. Too late, by my reckoning.
Musicians and song-lovers continue to love his music long after his lonely, sad death (in this he also echos Poe). Parlor Music and Music Hall Music developed to impact Jazz, Broadway, and eventually surrendered to Radio. Foster’s works along with some other songs, like a few of the hymns by George Root, live to resonate in the 21st century and they are symptomatic of songs of loss that Americans feel free to rely on to ease their individual and collective grief. The songs of Woody Guthrie and others begin here. Aaron Copeland wrote: “We have our national hero in Stephen Foster. More songwriter than composer, and with a naturalness of feeling that places his melodies with the folk song, his simplicity and honesty are not easy to imitate. But this same simplicity and naturalness inspired a definite type of our own music” (qtd. in Tomaschewski).
Many of Foster's popular tunes were written prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. Several of these endured through the war but given new meanings and greater depth. His spiritual "Hard Times Come No More" not only was sung by both sides but also became a hymn for the freed slaves, the song also being reborn during the Civil Rights Movements during the 1950's and 1960's. Now in the 21st century, his song continues to have meaning.
Foster and Poe share similarities in their lives and importance. About the age of three, both suffered a severe sense of loss. Poe lost his mother; Foster lost his beloved home, his oldest sister Charlotte, and his baby brother. The emotions of loss stayed with both men and served to determine themes and subjects of their works. Both men are recognized as America's first artistic geniuses. Stephen Foster remains America's best known composer/lyricist. I have heard Foster's music sung and performed in diverse places such East and West Berlin, Barcelona, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, and Kaula Lumpur. His music has been included on Classical recordings alongside Mozart, Stravinski, and Ravel.
Foster's music is so common that many Americans hear the songs, believing they are folk songs. A simple Youtube search will reveal how so many of Foster's songs are adapted to classical, jazz, recital, folk, country / western, rap, bluegrass, and rock. Even The Beatles performed their own rendition of "Beautiful Dreamer." Found among his belongings at his death within a leather wallet was a scrap of paper reading "Dear friends and gentle hearts." An appropriate epitaph.
Sources: Tomaschewski, W. Stephen Collins Foster. 2008. Web. 9 Jan. 2013
Howard, John. Stephen Foster: America's Troubadour. New York: Crowell, 1953. Print.
Emerson, Ken. Doodaah: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture. New York: Simon, 1997. Print.
"Beautiful Dreamer: Stephen Foster." The American Experience. PBS Video, 2003. DVD.
As a child in the 1950’s, I grew up learning that Stephen Collins Foster was considered the father of American music. Born in 1826, Foster achieved a solid education in the classics and spent a short time in Jefferson College in Pennsylvania but left after a short period of study. While working for a shipping company in Cincinnati, in 1849 he began to publish Parlor Music, most noteworthy was “Oh Susanna.” He also liked the black face Minstrel Shows and wrote many hits. He attempted to compose full-time around 1850.
[Wikipedia defines parlor music, or parlour music, as " a type of popular music which, as the name suggests, is intended to be performed in the parlours of middle-class homes by amateur singers and pianists. Disseminated as sheet music, its heyday came in the 19th century, as a result of a steady increase in the number of households with enough surplus cash to purchase musical instruments and instruction in music, and with the leisure time and cultural motivation to engage in recreational music-making. Its popularity waned in the 20th century as the phonograph record and radio replaced sheet music as the most common method of dissemination of popular music." See Parlor Music
"Foster belongs to a class of songwriters whose melodies are more familiar than the names of their composers. Many people think Foster’s melodies came from traditional American folk songs. They did not, except perhaps in a most indirect way" (Tomaschewski).
The Civil War brought an abrupt change to a number of his songs. Foster also wrote his share of patriotic war songs like “Nothing but an Old Soldier” (sung by a Revolutionary War veteran) and “I’ll be a Soldier.” However, his songs moved from “Old Black Joe” minstrel type songs to the haunting “Was My Brother in the Battle?” and “My Boy is Coming Home from the War.” It is these songs that hold a strong hold on 21st century America.
Foster's career as a composer/lyricist was one massive financial struggle. The lack of copyright protections and disreputable piracy (to use 21st century terms) of publishing houses caused great financial and familial distress. In this respect, his life and career resembles another innovator, Edgar Allen Poe. Like the poet, Foster's life was embedded in poverty and family crisis. Unlike Poe, Foster's family life was rocky; his wife and daughter had left him soon before his death for financial reasons, and he died alone. Foster and his wife were, by supporters of each spouse, incompatible. She had no understanding of his temperament or his profession. She felt he should be a clerk with a regular salary. This conflict lead to Foster often staying out late and carousing with friends and family. His diaries, according to Ken Emerson's biography of Foster, expressed this distress' negative impact on his compositions (the 20th century writer James Joyce also suffered domestic conflict due to his wife's contempt for his profession) . Nonetheless, their bond must have been sincere, for they made numerous attempts at reconciliation and domestic life.
Foster's career also suffered lack of financial rewards, similar to that of Poe: poor copyright laws, lack of protection, and a lack of business acumen. If he had worked under present day laws, he would have earned over $10,000,000 (in 19th century money) during his lifetime. Beyond his financial and domestic strife, Foster suffered two personal crises. First was his reading of the novel Uncle Tom's Cabin. The book shattered his innocence about the nature of slavery and lives of African Americans in general. Foster shared the generalized racism of the 19th century, but he was no bigot as we understand the term in the 21st century. He often worked with showman and promoters to soften the harsh bigotry of most Minstrel shows, at times demanding that the actors in Blackface show understanding--if not compassion--for their black characters. Yet, yet he loved Black Face minstrel shows as a musical form and a means of making money. This confrontation between his love for the music and the financial rewards collided against the lies spread by Minstrel Shows led to Foster's slowly altered his joyous, raucous Minstrel music (for the most part, his most profitable source of income) into ballads expressing an overriding sense of loss and homelessness.
The emotional turmoil found an another outlet during the 1856 Presidential campaign; he wrote political copy and songs for the Doughface Democrats who felt that keeping the South in the Union was, well, stupid. He lashed out with great energy. However, Foster in general was non-political unlike most of his extended family who were traditional Democrats with a dislike of the Republican Party and particularly Abolitionists. His music was anything but supportive of the Southern cause. The experience left him frustrated with himself. To use literary terminology, Foster was a Romantic sentimentalist faced with a growing presence of Realism. Like Poe after the death of Virginia, Foster's creative force was shattered. Frustrated, angry, and broke, he turned to destructive habits including drinking binges, writing music quickly and selling his work cheaply. The lack of financial rewards for his work, s broken marriage, and depression brought on by the Civil War, he spiraled down.
For a time, he teamed up with a lyricist George Cooper; the pair wrote too hits quite popular today: "My Wife is a Most Knowing Woman" and "If you only had a Moustache." Actually, Foster was in the vanguard of the new variety music shows. Two of his war-time songs still rank high in popular music: "Willie Has Gone to War" and "Was my Brother in the Battle." Other discounted songs are more respected by musicians and the public now than biographers, musicologists, and historians.
By 1863, Foster's life was in tatters. His health was failing, he lost pride in his work, often mocking it and himself. Near the end, his creativity, health, and native talent lay in ashes. However, one dying ember flared into brilliant flame, unsurpassed even by himself at his creative prime: "Beautiful Dreamer." Supported by primary sources, many of Foster's biographers believe his 'Beautiful Dreamer' was not just a sentimental love ballad; it was love song to America, the country where dreams could be fulfilled. But, America of dreams was asleep in the nightmare of the Civil War. He wished this dreamer would awake--for him. If Walt Whitman were ever aware of this song, he would have understood its meaning's depth.
His behavior continued to self-destruct. Starving and weak, he feel hitting and cutting his head and cutting his neck. Hours later, he was found, and he died soon thereafter. Like Poe, he pathetically died broke and in delirium. At their deaths, they both were recognized immediately as geniuses. Too late, by my reckoning.
Musicians and song-lovers continue to love his music long after his lonely, sad death (in this he also echos Poe). Parlor Music and Music Hall Music developed to impact Jazz, Broadway, and eventually surrendered to Radio. Foster’s works along with some other songs, like a few of the hymns by George Root, live to resonate in the 21st century and they are symptomatic of songs of loss that Americans feel free to rely on to ease their individual and collective grief. The songs of Woody Guthrie and others begin here. Aaron Copeland wrote: “We have our national hero in Stephen Foster. More songwriter than composer, and with a naturalness of feeling that places his melodies with the folk song, his simplicity and honesty are not easy to imitate. But this same simplicity and naturalness inspired a definite type of our own music” (qtd. in Tomaschewski).
Many of Foster's popular tunes were written prior to the outbreak of the Civil War. Several of these endured through the war but given new meanings and greater depth. His spiritual "Hard Times Come No More" not only was sung by both sides but also became a hymn for the freed slaves, the song also being reborn during the Civil Rights Movements during the 1950's and 1960's. Now in the 21st century, his song continues to have meaning.
Foster and Poe share similarities in their lives and importance. About the age of three, both suffered a severe sense of loss. Poe lost his mother; Foster lost his beloved home, his oldest sister Charlotte, and his baby brother. The emotions of loss stayed with both men and served to determine themes and subjects of their works. Both men are recognized as America's first artistic geniuses. Stephen Foster remains America's best known composer/lyricist. I have heard Foster's music sung and performed in diverse places such East and West Berlin, Barcelona, Paris, Singapore, Tokyo, and Kaula Lumpur. His music has been included on Classical recordings alongside Mozart, Stravinski, and Ravel.
Foster's music is so common that many Americans hear the songs, believing they are folk songs. A simple Youtube search will reveal how so many of Foster's songs are adapted to classical, jazz, recital, folk, country / western, rap, bluegrass, and rock. Even The Beatles performed their own rendition of "Beautiful Dreamer." Found among his belongings at his death within a leather wallet was a scrap of paper reading "Dear friends and gentle hearts." An appropriate epitaph.
Sources: Tomaschewski, W. Stephen Collins Foster. 2008. Web. 9 Jan. 2013
Howard, John. Stephen Foster: America's Troubadour. New York: Crowell, 1953. Print.
Emerson, Ken. Doodaah: Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture. New York: Simon, 1997. Print.
"Beautiful Dreamer: Stephen Foster." The American Experience. PBS Video, 2003. DVD.