Henry Clay Work

Henry Clay Work, named for the statesman and former House Speaker Henry Clay,^[1] was born on October 1, 1832, in Middletown, Connecticut.^[2] The Work family was of Scottish origin, their surname derived from Auld Wark, a significant stronghold during the Anglo-Scottish wars. To avert religious persecution, they migrated to the north of Ireland. Soon after, in 1720, Joseph Work emigrated to the United States, settling in Ashford, Connecticut.^[3]

Henry Work's background was modest, "pass[ing] his boyhood days almost in want"^[4] without much formal education.^[5] When aged just three, his father, Alanson, resettled the family near Quincy, Illinois, to better their fortunes.^[6] He was an anti-slavery advocate organizing the family home into a station of the Underground Railroad, a network for fugitive slaves to escape to freedom.^[7] For aiding thousands of slaves flee from bondage,^[8] Alanson was sentenced to twelve years' hard labor in Missouri in 1841. He was conditionally pardoned four years later, forced to return to Connecticut and abandon the Railroad.^[9]

Having spent much time with the freed slaves, the efforts of Henry Work's father left a stirring impression on him and would come to influence his songwriting.^[10] He became familiar with the African-American dialect and minstrelsy, and, above all, came to terms with slaves' routine agonies. Work grew to share his father's staunch abolitionism, manifesting itself in his later compositions, many of which were endowed with "a pronounced moralistic zeal."^[11]

While in Illinois, he attended irregular Latin and Greek courses at Mission Institute.^[12] These fostered his interest in philology.^[13] In music, Work was largely self-taught, save for some lessons at a church singing school and exposure to camp meetings in his neighborhood.^[14] He quickly grew acquainted with the principles of musical notation, devising original melodies while laboring at the family pasture.^[15]

In 1845, obliged by the terms of Alanson's release from prison, the Work family migrated back to Middletown, except for Henry, who stayed a year longer.^[1] Then aged fourteen, he reluctantly commenced his apprenticeship as a tailor, but his father soon allowed him to pursue a career more "congenial to his tastes" in printing, specializing in typesetting music.^[16] Work never permanently strayed from this trade.^[17] Typesetting granted him further insight into the English language, which, according to George Birdseye, would prove necessary for his future songwriting ventures.^[15] In his spare time, his "everyday thought" of writing and music took effect, penning numerous poems, adapting them to melodies, and contributing them to various newspapers.^[18]

In 1853 Work composed his first song with original lyrics and melody, "We Are Coming, Sister Mary". Instead of sending it to a gazette's "poet's corner," he submitted it to Edwin P. Christy, founder of the eponymous minstrel troupe based in New York City that had initiated Stephen Foster's career.^[19] Christy was "well pleased" and later performed it at his shows, received with respectable praise and some popularity.^[20] He later sold it to the local publishing firm Firth, Pond & Co. for the sufficient remuneration of $25,^[a] which he bestowed on Work.^[17] This encouraged him to pursue "more ambitious efforts as a composer,"^[15] publishing a comic song, "Lilly-Wily Woken", for the New York firm William Hall & Son two years later.^[21]

While his career had been moderately fruitful so far, Work started doubting his songwriting capabilities. He passed the rest of the decade without publishing any music, choosing to focus exclusively on printing.^[22] For this reason he migrated to Chicago in 1855, aged twenty-three, and took up a new printing job.^[23] Two years later, he married Sarah Parker of Massachusetts and bought a cottage at Hyde Park.^[24][b] In March 1861, with his passion for songwriting revived, Work published a song commemorating the steamer Lady Elgin's shipwreck, "Lost on the Lady Elgin", meeting little success.^[26]

The following month, the American Civil War broke out. After the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12–13, President Abraham Lincoln called for 75,000 volunteers to suppress the Southern rebellion.^[27] Music, which "aroused herself to meet the exigencies of the times,"^[28] helped raise the Union's spirits, rallying civilians and troops, both White and Black, round their nation's cause.^[29] Being in such high demand, patriotic song submissions began pouring into local newspapers and music labels.^[30] It is estimated that approximately two thousand were published as sheet music in 1861 alone.^[31] However, the Union still lacked much antislavery vigor.^[10] Having just been remotivated to write music, Work was drawn to Root & Cady, the most prominent Northern publishing firm of the time^[32] operated by the songwriter George F. Root.^[33] He engaged in a successful partnership with the firm throughout the war and in subsequent years.^[34]

Work's music "captured the spirit and struggle of the Civil War,"^[35] composed with "a fiery partisanship."^[36] From 1861 to 1865 he penned 27 patriotic pieces and published them for Root & Cady.^[37] His songs reflect the Union's progress and civilian struggles during the war.^[38] They reaped much success; Work's career, as well as Root & Cady's, crested during the war.^[39]

"Brave Boys Are They", a grim overview of army life, kickstarted Work's wartime career, but it was not until March that his music started leaving an impression.^[40] That month, Root bought out another of his Unionist compositions, "Our Captain's Last Words".^[41] Root met him in person a short while after as Work presented the manuscript for a new song; his autobiography recounts the encounter:

"One day early in the war a quiet and rather solemn-looking young man, poorly clad, was sent up to my room from the store with a song for me to examine. I looked at it and then at him in astonishment. It was "Kingdom Coming"—elegant in manuscript, full of bright, good sense and comical situations in its "darkey" dialect—the words fitting the melody almost as aptly and neatly as Gilbert fits Sullivan—the melody decidedly good and taking, and the whole exactly suited to the times. 'Did you write these words and music?' I asked. A gentle 'Yes' was the answer. 'What is your business, if I may inquire?' 'I am a printer.' 'Would you rather write music than set type?' 'Yes.' 'Well, if this is a specimen of what you can do, I think you may give up the printing business.'"^[42]

He saw great potential in Work's "gift for composition"^[43] and, in a time that "called for patriotic songs with a strong Union flavor,"^[44] assigned him a songwriting post lasting until the Civil War's end.^[34]

"Kingdom Coming" is deemed "the first of [Work's] important songs,"^[46] cementing itself as a wartime favorite of African-American troops.^[47] A "hypocritical and cowardly" slave owner, fearing being captured by incoming Union military forces, escapes his plantation, then taken over by his slaves who lock their overseer up as retribution for his cruelty.^[48] "Kingdom Coming" reverses the antebellum tradition of denigrating the plight of slaves, instead sympathizing with them.^[49] It appealed to African-American Union troops who sang it regularly as they marched to the South.^[50] First advertised by Edwin P. Christy in April 1862, "Kingdom Coming" quickly became a linchpin of minstrel show repertoires.^[51] Root could not keep up with orders for the song, claiming it to be his firm's most profitable composition "for nearly a year and a half."^[52] Up until the 19th century's close, it was reportedly as popular as "Dixie".^[53]

In 1863, Root began issuing a periodical, the Song Messenger, with Work as its editor. They agreed that Work would be "independent and untrammeled in the expression of his views on all subjects"^[54] but this promptly sparked controversy. In a June article he admonished compilers of church music books for altering traditional tunes and corrupting their sanctity, followed up by another in July denouncing one of the adapted hymns as "hardly recognizable [and] mutilated."^[55] Many compilers perceived these articles as defamation and demanded an apology. While the periodical survived the dispute, Work's editing post did not; he was laid off in August.^[56]

Work published a sequel of "Kingdom Coming" in July 1863 titled "Babylon is Fallen".^[57] Also written in vernacular, "Babylon is Fallen" aroused African Americans recruited for the Union army; their numbers had grown since the Emancipation Proclamation's passage. Also a favorite among abolitionists and soldiers, it sold more first-month copies than its prequel.^[58] In 1864, Work published the patriotic songs "Wake Nicodemus", a minstrel show hit,^[59] and "Corporal Schnapps",^[60] a tragic yet humorous lament noted for its employment of German dialect, said to enable "the difficult fear of laughing and crying at the same time."^[61]

Besides the Union struggle, Work devoted himself to the temperance movement.^[63] The movement gained traction after the Civil War's close as many moralistic fraternities, eminently, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, called for public education on the perils of alcohol.^[64] In line with the ever-growing movement, Work composed several influential songs spotlighting the perils of alcohol consumption.^[65] His most renowned is "Come Home, Father", a young girl's plea for her father, then trifling away his pay and time in a bar getting drunk, to return home while her brother is slowly dying.^[66] The WCTU later adopted it as their anthem.^[66]

In February 1865, Work set P. G. T. Beauregard's recent evacuation of Charleston to music; the product, "Ring the Bell, Watchman", reflected the successive toppling of Confederate cities during the war's final weeks.^[67] Robert E. Lee's surrender at Appomattox Court House on April 9 marked the Civil War's end;^[68] Work celebrated the triumph with a final wartime composition, "'Tis Finished!, or Sing Hallelujah", published in June.^[69]

Of all Work's Civil War compositions, none were as successful or acclaimed as "Marching Through Georgia".^[70] The end of 1864 saw the March to the Sea, in which Union forces crippled Confederate resources in Georgia and took over Savannah. Work capitalized on this to write another of his topical celebratory songs, "Marching Through Georgia".^[71] Published in January 1865, it was a runaway success, selling 500,000 copies in its first twelve years.^[72] "Marching Through Georgia" became a staple of Civil War reunions.^[73]

With the Civil War over, Work's motivation for songwriting and musical output declined considerably.^[74] Turning away from patriotic songs now deemed outdated,^[75] he settled into sentimental balladry.^[76] His postbellum songs focus on somber themes owing to the personal tragedies engulfing his later life, as writer Dean Nelson notes in a 2008 Connecticut Explored article: "[...] in his lyrics, children die, soldiers die, ships sink, love goes unreturned, poor folks starve, and the lonely remain so."^[77] Newly enriched by his war efforts, Work embarked on a tour around Europe from 1865 to 1866, during which he wrote the first of his few notable postbellum songs, "The Ship That Never Returned".^[78] It narrates the departure of a ship from a harbor that never come back, with a mother and the captain's wife lamenting the loss of their loved ones on board.^{[citation needed]}

Upon returning to the United States, Work and his brother invested most of their wealth in hundreds of acres of land in Vineland, New Jersey hoping to establishing a profitable fruit farm. Their expectations were promptly wiped out as the farm failed, bankrupting them both. This was the first of several personal tragedies to befall him.^[79] "[F]orced to begin life over again," Work left Vineland and disappeared from public life.^[80] In 1868 he moved to Philadelphia, living in seclusion since his wife had become insane for reasons unspecified; still, the family seemed to condemn him.^[e] He was cut off from his children who were residing with Sarah in Greenwich Village, Manhattan.^[82] Two years later, meanwhile having passed some time in California,^[83] he resettled in Brooklyn, spending the next twelve years isolated in a boarding house.^[84] A letter composed in the early 1870s to his correspondent Susie Mitchell paints a grim picture of the depression consuming his postbellum life, worsened by the loss of his son Waldo in 1871:^[85] "My nerves seem to be gradually gaining an ascendancy over me—the fastenings which connect the mind and body seem to be growing loose and getting detached."^[86]

In the postwar years leading up to 1872, Work penned 17 songs,^[f] fewer than the 27 authored during the Civil War.^[37] Others include "Andy Veto" (1866), a satire of then-President Andrew Johnson's vetoing of Reconstruction legislation,^[88] and "Crossing the Grand Sierras" (1870), describing a train voyage across the nation set just after the Transcontinental Railroad's completion.^[89] The latter was Work's last song published for Root & Cady—personal differences between him and Root as well as the business' abrupt closure brought their once fertile collaboration to an end.^[90]

In the fall of 1871, Root & Cady's firm burnt down in the Great Chicago Fire.^[91] It raged on from October 8 to October 10, destroying all waterworks, banking houses and railway depots, and caused a minor depression in the national stock market.^[92] All of Work's original music plates fell victim to the conflagration.^[93] Unable to continue the business in its former rendition, Root & Cady's music copyrights were all sold to Ohioan publishers S. Brainard Sons and John Church & Co. The firm filed for bankruptcy in 1872. Root continued his former teaching profession and Cady left Chicago for New York.^[94] This dispirited a potential reinvigoration of Work's songwriting career; from 1872 to 1876 he published no music.^[74]

After Root & Cady shut down, Chauncey M. Cady also sought to reinitiate a profitable career as a music publisher. He established a business in New York City, in 1875, lasting five years until shutting it down owing to fatigue from old age.^[95] In 1876 Cady chanced to encounter Work while strolling in Broadway and, sensing a lucrative opportunity, offered him a post at his business. Eager to pick up songwriting once again, Work accepted; he published nine songs for Cady from 1876 to 1879, ending his four-year "retirement." Throughout this time, he also wrote for John Church & Co., William A. Pond & Co. and Root's firm.^[96][74]

Work's most profitable hit, also his last, was "Grandfather's Clock", issued by Cady in January 1876 and popularized by African-American entertainer Sam Lucas in New Haven.^[98] Inspired by his sympathetic attitude toward disaffected individuals, he anthropomorphizes a clock to signify its owner; it had stood for ninety years throughout the old man's life and accompanied him.^[99] The song secured over 800,000 sheet music sales.^[100] It also coined the phrase grandfather clock to describe a longcase clock.^[101] After Work sold the copyright to "Grandfather's Clock", Cady paid him a royalty of $4,000,^[g] helping to lift him out of poverty.^[102][h] The American music historian John T. Howard claimed in 1967 that "there is scarcely a school songbook" excluding "Grandfather's Clock".^[36]

None of Work's compositions post-"Grandfather's Clock" reproduced the same success.^[105] His life became mangled by boredom and depression; in an 1875 letter, he wrote: "I am no longer a printer—am now a proof-reader. Nothing to do all day, but to read and criticize, find fault or mark errors [...]"^[106] Only printing, the career he held since his youth, and attendance at local church services absorbed him.^[107] An unhappy marriage and family life drove him further into despair as the "last years of his life were clouded with the illness of his wife"^[108] who was in a mental asylum.^[109] He tried his hand at a long-distance relationship with Pennsylvanian Susie Mitchell but eventually called it off after a decade of corresponding with her.^[110] Work's passion for songwriting also took another hit; following its revival in early 1876, he would only issue two compositions before another hiatus in 1879.^[111] Some songs of this period are the "California Bird Song" (1878)^[i] and "Mac O' Macorkity" (1877).^[112]

In 1882 Work left Brooklyn for the more serene Bath in upstate New York, longing for an abode where he "could find a still nook in this still noisy world [...] engage in literary and musical work, and at the same time find repose for over-strung nerves."^[113] That year, he briefly picked up composition again, penning roughly ten songs until 1883, including "The Lost Letter" and "The Prayer on the Pier", but at this point he could only "[clutch] for straws of his former fame."^[114]

He died abruptly of heart disease on June 8, 1884, while visiting his mother's residence at Chestnut Street, Hartford.^[115] He was survived by one of his four children, Nellie.^[116] Obituaries "brushed off" his legacy.^[117] He is buried in Spring Grove Cemetery, Hartford.^[118] It was not until 25 years later that a monument in his honor was erected, in the same cemetery.^[119]

George F. Root said of Work's style of composition: "Mr. Work was a slow, painstaking writer, being from one to three weeks upon a song; but when the work was done it was like a piece of fine mosaic, especially in the fitting of words to music."^[120] He stressed Work's perceived poetic talent and mastery of melody.^[121] Another writer remarked:

"His melodies are simple and natural, but as unlike and varies as the emotions to which they give expression; but, whether grave or comic, they possess inspirational qualities that, as musical compositions, arouse the imagination and fasten themselves upon the memory of the hearer. In his songs, Mr. Work is distinguished by his use of plain Anglo-Saxon words. He discards frothy adjectives, all rant, all extravagance of language, and, like Dickens, relies upon the situation he creates. This is his source of power over the human heart."^[122]

His method of composition involved devising the melody and lyrics simultaneously in his head and, after much deliberation, putting them to paper. Sometimes, he would deliberate for a short while—at other times, he would anxiously pass days on end failing to concoct a suitable idea. The finished manuscript would then be published without him once previously hearing what he had composed. In his youth, he habitually jotted down lyrics on small cards while going about his routine and then adapted them to sweet piano melodies.^[123][124] Fixated on originality, Work crafted the tune for all his compositions and wrote the lyrics of all but four, actively refusing requests to put others' words to music.^[125][j]

Many of Work's songs present slaves' routine undertakings on the plantation and incorporate African-American dialect, thus falling in the minstrelsy genre.^[127] In Florine Thayer McCray's words, they evoke "the very atmosphere of awakening plantation life" and echo "the cottonpicker's musing hum and the roustabout's refrain."^[108] However, contrary to the minstrel tradition, Work exposes the actual struggles endured by African Americans rather than stereotyping or idealizing them as most antebellum musicians had done. Having come face to face with their hardships while in the Underground Railroad, Work understood the plight of slaves.^[128] He resorted to minstrelsy not for entertainment but to endorse emancipation and Black enlistment.^[129]

"Kingdom Coming" strays from the mockery of blackface minstrelsy, portraying a realistic picture of plantation life and humanizing slaves rather than presenting them as blithe, docile servants. Instead of the oppressive master reigning supreme over his subjects as generally observed in minstrel songs, these roles are inverted; the slaves take over the plantation and overcome their overseer.^[49] The song's allure was bolstered by its employment of African-American dialect.^[127]

"Grafted into the Army" (1862) is described by David Ewen as "a delightful comedy tune,"^[46] narrated by a widowed mother whose son was drafted into the Union army under President Lincoln's Enrollment Act.^[130]

One of Work's obituaries summarized his persona as an "invalid-like fellow with sadness in his voice and bearing poverty in his dress."^[131] Reportedly "a man of fine appearance," he stood at about five feet ten inches, having brown hair, full whiskers and bluish-grey eyes.^[132] He was "very reserved and unassuming," going as far as to refuse exposing plagiarism to his music.^[133] He made few intimate friends.^[93] Practicing what his temperance songs preached, he was a committed teetotaler and Prohibitionist activist, even advocating the outlawing of tobacco.^[134]

A Christian disciple and regular church-goer, while residing in Brooklyn, Work frequented services at Henry Ward Beecher's Plymouth Church; in 1871 he wrote: "One radical struck deep into the ground where Plymouth Church stands, and for months that was all that held me."^[135] In fact, that year, he composed a brief oratorio dedicated to his congregation, Joy in Heaven!, or The Returning Wandering's Welcome.^[136]

In 1857 Work married the Bay Stater Sarah Parker.^[24] He had four children with her: Waldo Franklin (1857–1871), Willie Lovejoy (1861–1862), Ellen Louisa (1863–1895) and Clara Etta (1878).^[107] The Works spent a few years in Chicago and Hubbardston, Massachusetts before migrating permanently to Greenwich Village, Manhattan, sometime before 1865.^[137] After his wife spiraled into degeneracy, Work lived disconnected from his family.^[138] They chided him, without sound grounds, for Sarah's mental instability as well as Waldo's abrupt death.^[139] The only saving grace of such a tumultuous family life was his daughter Nellie, his only child to outlive him, whom he was exceedingly fond of and depended on for solace in his final years.^[140] Having to endure a distressing marriage, and ruling out divorce as an option, Work hungered for a romantic relationship.^[138]

In 1868, while searching for a home in Philadelphia, he came across one owned by the Mitchell family in the Ledger Residences. While greeting the family, he became enchanted by the 18-year-old Susie and soon fell in love with her.^[141] Assuming she reciprocated his affection but also desperate for a gratifying relationship, Work established a correspondence with her, writing 40 lengthy letters from 1869 to 1883 which "concealed his feelings in the formal style of the day."^[142] The vast majority were written in his early New York years, from 1870 to 1874.^[143] While Susie invited him over several times during this period such as for Christmas, she did not share his enthusiasm.^[144] In 1871 Work even dedicated a song to her, "No Letters From Home", a plea for more letters from the Mitchell family to remedy the loneliness eclipsing him.^[145] Being nearly double her age, he knew this relationship stood no chance at being fulfilled. In fact, she would get married in 1877.^[146] Upon hearing of Susie's intentions to wed, Work thought it best to close off the correspondence and thereafter only wrote terse, stilted notes on occasion.^[147] One of his final long letters reads:^[148]

"There is certainly a mysterious chord connecting us, and, having lasted so long, it will probably never be entirely severed. … Of all motives that serve as main-springs for human action, the love of a woman has ever been with me the strongest—by far the strongest. Under such influence, but rarely otherwise, I can do my best! Oh! how differently I might have been situated to-day, had such an influence, like a beacon light, shone strongly and steadily on all the years of my manhood!"^[149]

Work migrated to Chicago in 1855 to further his trade as a printer.^[23] In 1859, after Paul Cornell established a new community in the city's south wing, Hyde Park, Work purchased a plot of land from him for $175.^[150][k] Roughly a year later, he oversaw the construction of his residence at 5317 Dorchester Avenue, a small, humble cottage "hardly [looking] big enough to house a piano."^[151] He and his wife, Sarah, devoted themselves to the Chicagoan community, being among the first organizers of the First Presbyterian Church.^[152] Work even served as township clerk from 1864 to 1866.^[153] In 1867 he sold the cottage and land and took up a new residence in Philadelphia, later moving to New York City.^[154][138]

Work indulged himself in mechanical studies and experiments, and during pauses in his musical career, he was devoted "almost exclusively"^[132] to them. He invented and patented a knitting machine, a walking doll and a rotary engine.^[155] In 1868 he wrote a once popular seriocomic poem, The Upshot Family.^[156] Work designed the title pages of his songs.^[157] While a committed songwriter, he did not delight in singing, declaring: "The man who writes songs doesn't generally feel like singing them."^[158]

Work is one of the most celebrated American popular music songwriters of the Civil War and Reconstruction era.^[159] A committed believer in moral societal causes,^[160] his music brought them closer to the people. In fact, many of his songs were part and parcel of contemporary antislavery and Prohibitionist gatherings.^[161] He is, however, best remembered for his patriotic compositions hallowing the Union in the Civil War.^[38]

A Hartford monument dedicated to the composer by the then-Connecticut governor Frank B. Weeks reads, "Work rendered a service that would entitle him to be called the chief singer of the Civil War [...] whose life work did so much to keep burning brightly the flame of patriotism during the four dark years when the fate of this nation trembled in the balance."^[162] An 1884 obituary encapsulates Work's legacy: "Some few of his productions have not only been on the lips of nearly every man, woman and child in America, but have been known and sung, with some variations, in every part of the world. … His compositions were of the popular order and touched the popular heart."^[163]

He was additionally one of the developers of the verse-chorus structure of late-19th-century popular music.^[164] In 1970, Work was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame.^[165]