Paul Dresser

Paul Dresser (born Johann Paul Dreiser Jr.; April 22, 1857 – January 30, 1906) was an American singer, songwriter, and comedic actor of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Dresser performed in traveling minstrel and medicine-wagon shows and as a vaudeville entertainer for decades, before transitioning to music publishing later in life. His biggest hit, "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away" (1897), was the best selling song of its time. Although Dresser had no formal training in music composition, he wrote ballads that had wide appeal, including some of the most popular songs of the era. During a career that spanned nearly two decades, from 1886 to 1906, Dresser composed and published more than 150 songs. Following the success of "Wabash", many newspapers compared Dresser to popular composer Stephen Foster. "On the Banks of the Wabash, Far Away" became the official song of Indiana in 1913. The Paul Dresser Birthplace in Terre Haute is designated as a state shrine and memorial. Dresser was inducted into the Songwriters Hall of Fame in 1970.

Dresser grew up in a large family (including his brother, novelist Theodore Dreiser) and lived in Sullivan and Terre Haute, Indiana. He had a troubled childhood and spent time in jail. Dresser left home at age sixteen to join a traveling minstrel act and performed in several regional theaters before joining John Hamlin's Wizard Oil traveling medicine-wagon show in 1878. Dresser composed his first songs while working for Hamlin. He settled in Evansville, Indiana, for several years while continuing to work as a traveling performer and musician. Eventually, he became a nationally known talent and participated in several traveling acts, including The Two Johns, A Tin Soldier, and The Danger Signal. Dresser's songwriting talent developed during his years as a performer; he began by writing songs featured in his shows and later wrote and sold songs to others' acts. Dresser moved to New York City, and in 1893 Dresser joined Tin Pan Alley's Howley, Haviland and Company, a New York City sheet music publisher, as a silent partner. At the height of his success, Dresser was a nationally known entertainer, successful songwriter, and sheet music publisher. He was generous, especially to family and friends, and a lavish spender. The turn of the century brought him financial distress when his music fell out of style. In 1905 his music publishing business declared bankruptcy. He died the following year.

Paul Dresser was born Johann Paul Dreiser Jr. on April 22, 1858, in Terre Haute, Indiana, the fourth son of Johann Paul and Sarah Mary Schanab Dreiser. By the age of twenty he had changed his surname to Dresser. His father, a German immigrant from Mayen, was a weaver and dyer who eventually became the manager of a woolen mill in Indiana. Dresser's mother, born near Dayton, Ohio, was a Mennonite who was disowned after her elopement and marriage. After Dresser's three older brothers died in infancy, he became the eldest of the family's ten surviving children. One of Dresser's sisters nicknamed him "Pudley" because of his "chubbiness." Dresser's younger brother, Theodore Dreiser, would become a noted author.

In July 1863 the family moved to Sullivan, Indiana, where Dresser's father became foreman of the newly opened Sullivan Woolen Mills. Although his father worked in other woolen mills in Ohio and Indiana, he was not a successful businessman or manager of a mill. During Dresser's youth the family struggled with periods of poverty and misfortune. In 1865 Dresser's father temporarily lost his job after a fire destroyed the Sullivan mill; a year later he suffered a work-related head injury. In 1867 his father and two partners purchased and operated a new mill, but the business lost its roof in a storm and the men sold it for a loss. As a young boy living in Sullivan, Dresser may have seen his first minstrel groups and medicine-wagon shows. The town was frequented by bands that played many of the era's popular and patriotic songs at numerous carnivals, festivals, circuses, and fairs. By 1871 Dresser's family had returned to Terre Haute, where his father secured a job in another woolen mill.

About 1870, Dresser's father, a devout Catholic and known for his "religious zealotry" according to his son Theodore, sent his eldest son to St. Meinrad Seminary in southern Indiana to study for the priesthood. While living with his family in Sullivan, Dresser was befriended by Father Herman Joseph Alerding, a local priest who was a St. Meinrad graduate. Alerding may have taught Dresser to play brass musical instruments and influenced the decision to send Dresser to seminary school. Dresser quickly found the Benedictine seminary too strict and confining and decided to leave. Dresser would later claim to have gotten into trouble with the priests for teaching the younger boys "tricks of various kinds."

Although his family had moved to Terre Haute, Dresser returned to Sullivan after he left St. Meinrad. He stayed with family friends while working on local farms during the summer of 1871 through the summer of 1872. The fourteen-year-old Dresser then returned to Terre Haute and worked a series of odd jobs to help support his family. Dresser continued his education at the St. Bonaventure Lyceum academy in Terre Haute and took piano lessons from a local music teacher, his only formal musical training. During this time the relationship between Dresser and his father quickly deteriorated and the teen may have had run-ins with the local police. Whatever the reason, Dresser returned to Sullivan to work on a friend's farm, away from the city.

After his return to Terre Haute in 1874, Dresser and his father resumed their hostile relationship. Dresser also resumed to his old habits of spending time with delinquents and drinking. At age sixteen Dresser took a job as a teacher and musician at a Catholic church in Brazil, Indiana, but left after less than a year. Shortly thereafter, Charley Kelly, a traveling minstrel, hired Dresser to join his act as a piano player. The two traveled around southern Indiana, playing wherever they could to earn a meager income. After a few months, Kelly disappeared with their money during a show, leaving Dresser with no funds to pay their lodging or food bills. Dresser spent two days in jail as punishment. After his release Dresser went to Indianapolis in search of work and was reunited with his mentor, Father Alerding, who had been recently moved to the city. Although Dresser was only a teen, Alerding gave him a job as a teacher at St. Joseph Catholic Church. In 1876, after he had taught for a full year, Dresser returned to his family in Terre Haute. Almost immediately he resumed his old way of life and spent most of his savings on liquor at a local bar. As his money ran low, Dresser turned to crime, robbing two saloons of whiskey and cash after they had closed for the night. Dresser was jailed for ten weeks before his trial, convicted, fined, and sentenced to another month of jail time. Released in June 1876, Dresser, who was not yet twenty years old, returned to his parents' home in disgrace.

In 1876 Dresser secured a job as an organist and singer with the Lemon Brothers, a traveling minstrel group from Marshall, Illinois. Dresser stayed with the group for more than a year, performing as an actor and singer, before they disbanded near the end of 1877. Next, Dresser went to Chicago, where John Austin Hamlin hired him to sing and perform in his traveling shows marketing Wizard Oil, a patent medicine.> Dresser composed his first songs while working for Hamlin. They were marketed as the Paul Dresser Songster (a songbook of sheet music) and sold to audiences after his performances.