Community hub
Recent from talks
Knowledge base stats:
Talk channels stats:
Members stats:
Stephen Foster
Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826 – January 13, 1864), known as "the father of American music", was an American composer known primarily for his parlour and folk music during the Romantic period. He wrote more than 200 songs, including "Oh! Susanna", "Hard Times Come Again No More", "Camptown Races", "Old Folks at Home" ("Swanee River"), "My Old Kentucky Home", "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair", "Old Black Joe", and "Beautiful Dreamer". Many of his compositions remain popular today.
There are many biographies of Foster, but details differ widely. Among other issues, Foster wrote very little biographical information himself, and his brother Morrison Foster may have destroyed much information that he judged to reflect negatively upon the family.
Foster was born on July 4, 1826, in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania. His parents, William Barclay Foster and Eliza Clayland Tomlinson Foster, were of Ulster Scots and English descent. He had three older sisters and six older brothers. He attended private academies in Allegheny, Athens, and Towanda, Pennsylvania, and received an education in English grammar, diction, the classics, penmanship, Latin, Greek, and mathematics.[citation needed]
Foster taught himself to play the clarinet, guitar, flute, and piano. In 1839, his brother William was serving his apprenticeship as an engineer at Towanda and thought that Stephen would benefit from being under the supervision of Henry Kleber (1816–1897), a German-born music dealer in Pittsburgh. Under Kleber, Stephen was exposed to music composition. Together the pair studied the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Mendelssohn and Schubert.
The site of the Camptown Races – which would provide both the title and setting for events of one of Foster's best-known songs – was located 30 miles (48 km) from Athens and 15 miles (24 km) from Towanda. Foster's education included a brief period at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, now part of Washington & Jefferson College. His tuition was paid, but he had little spending money. He left Canonsburg to visit Pittsburgh with another student[when?] and did not return.
Foster married Jane Denny McDowell on July 22, 1850, and they visited New York and Baltimore on their honeymoon. Foster then returned to Pennsylvania and wrote most of his best-known songs: "Camptown Races" (1850), "Nelly Bly" (1850), "Ring de Banjo" (1851), "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.
Many of Foster's songs were used in the blackface minstrel shows popular at the time. He sought 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". However, Foster's output of minstrel songs declined after the early 1850s, as he turned primarily to parlor music. Many of his songs had Southern themes, yet Foster never lived in the South and visited it only once, during his 1852 honeymoon. Available archival evidence does not suggest that Foster was an abolitionist.
Foster's last four years were spent in New York City. There is little information on this period of his life, although family correspondence has been preserved.
Hub AI
Stephen Foster AI simulator
(@Stephen Foster_simulator)
Stephen Foster
Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826 – January 13, 1864), known as "the father of American music", was an American composer known primarily for his parlour and folk music during the Romantic period. He wrote more than 200 songs, including "Oh! Susanna", "Hard Times Come Again No More", "Camptown Races", "Old Folks at Home" ("Swanee River"), "My Old Kentucky Home", "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair", "Old Black Joe", and "Beautiful Dreamer". Many of his compositions remain popular today.
There are many biographies of Foster, but details differ widely. Among other issues, Foster wrote very little biographical information himself, and his brother Morrison Foster may have destroyed much information that he judged to reflect negatively upon the family.
Foster was born on July 4, 1826, in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania. His parents, William Barclay Foster and Eliza Clayland Tomlinson Foster, were of Ulster Scots and English descent. He had three older sisters and six older brothers. He attended private academies in Allegheny, Athens, and Towanda, Pennsylvania, and received an education in English grammar, diction, the classics, penmanship, Latin, Greek, and mathematics.[citation needed]
Foster taught himself to play the clarinet, guitar, flute, and piano. In 1839, his brother William was serving his apprenticeship as an engineer at Towanda and thought that Stephen would benefit from being under the supervision of Henry Kleber (1816–1897), a German-born music dealer in Pittsburgh. Under Kleber, Stephen was exposed to music composition. Together the pair studied the works of Mozart, Beethoven, Weber, Mendelssohn and Schubert.
The site of the Camptown Races – which would provide both the title and setting for events of one of Foster's best-known songs – was located 30 miles (48 km) from Athens and 15 miles (24 km) from Towanda. Foster's education included a brief period at Jefferson College in Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, now part of Washington & Jefferson College. His tuition was paid, but he had little spending money. He left Canonsburg to visit Pittsburgh with another student[when?] and did not return.
Foster married Jane Denny McDowell on July 22, 1850, and they visited New York and Baltimore on their honeymoon. Foster then returned to Pennsylvania and wrote most of his best-known songs: "Camptown Races" (1850), "Nelly Bly" (1850), "Ring de Banjo" (1851), "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.
Many of Foster's songs were used in the blackface minstrel shows popular at the time. He sought 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". However, Foster's output of minstrel songs declined after the early 1850s, as he turned primarily to parlor music. Many of his songs had Southern themes, yet Foster never lived in the South and visited it only once, during his 1852 honeymoon. Available archival evidence does not suggest that Foster was an abolitionist.
Foster's last four years were spent in New York City. There is little information on this period of his life, although family correspondence has been preserved.