Stephen Foster facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Stephen Foster
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Stephen Collins Foster
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Stephen Collins Foster
July 4, 1826 Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, U.S.
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| Died | January 13, 1864 (aged 37) New York City, New York, U.S.
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| Resting place | Allegheny Cemetery |
| Nationality | American |
| Occupation | Songwriter |
| Spouse(s) | Jane Denny MacDowell |
| Children | Marion (daughter) |
| Parent(s) | William Barclay Foster Elisa Clayland [Tomlinson] Foster |
Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826 - January 13, 1864) was the United States first composer who was paid for his songs. The publishers paid him for being able to publish his music. He was born in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania which is now part of Pittsburgh. His parents were more wealthy than others in the city. His most well-known and successful song is "Oh! Susanna". It was first performed in the Eagle Ice Cream Saloon in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in 1847.
In July 1850, Foster married Jane Denny MacDowell. They had one daughter, Marion. The marriage was troubled and the couple separated. Foster moved to New York City to pursue professional songwriting. He died in New York City on January 13, 1864, aged 37.
Foster wrote mainly in three musical genres: plantation songs ("Oh! Susanna", "Camptown Races"), parlor songs ("Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair", "Beautiful Dreamer") and Civil War songs ("We Are Coming, Father Abraham").
Contents
Birth and family
Stephen Collins Foster was born on July 4, 1826 to William Barclay Foster (September 7, 1779 - July 27, 1855) and Elisa Clayland [Tomlinson] Foster (January 1788 - January 1855). Stephen Collins was born in his father's home, "The White Cottage", at Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh.
He was the youngest of the Foster children.
The Fosters were married on November 14, 1807 in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania.
William Barclay Foster was a leader on the western frontier of Pennsylvania. He had settled near Pittsburgh. The Fosters had several children: Charlotte Susanna (1809), Ann Eliza (1812), Henry Baldwin (1816), Henrietta Angelica (1818), Dunning McNair (1821), Morrison (1823), and Stephen Collins (1826). A son was born in 1829, but died in 1830.
The Fosters lived in an elegant cottage high on a hillside above the Allegheny River in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Pittsburgh planned and developed by William Barclay Foster.
Boyhood and youth
Stephen was five when he attended an "infant school". In 1833 he went to the Alleghany Academy, a school for the social elite founded by the Presbyterian clergyman Rev. Joseph Stockton. In 1834, Stephen went to a black church with Olivia Pise, a mulatto servant. In 1836, the family left The White Cottage for ever and moved to Allegheny City when Stephen's father was appointed Collector of the Pennsylvania Canal.
Family legends say Stephen picked out harmonies on a guitar at age two, and played a flageolet with perfection in a music store at age seven. At age nine, he sang and performed with other boys in their own neighborhood theatrical productions.
Minstrel songs
Foster wrote 28 songs for the minstrel stage.
A typical minstrel song by Foster is set for solo voice with a four or five part chorus in the refrain and a short instrumental section intended for a dance on the stage. The best of these songs are "Oh! Susanna" (1848), "Nelly Bly" (1849), "Camptown Races" (1850), "Massa's in de Cold Ground" (1852), "Old Folks at Home" (1860), and "Old Black Joe" (1860).
Marriage and children
Foster married Jane Denny McDowell (1829 - 1903) on July 22, 1850 in Trinity Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh. She was the daughter of Andrew N. McDowell, a Pittsburgh physician, and Jane Denny Porter. The couple's only child Marion, a daughter, was born on April 18, 1850.
Marion Foster (1850 - 1935) married William Welsh and had three children. After living in St. Louis and Chicago, she moved in 1914 to a mansion (as caretaker) on the site of her grandparents' home in Lawrenceville. She was poor, gave piano lessons into her seventies, and battled the government unsuccessfully for repossession of a piece of land once belonging to her grandfather.
Death
On Saturday 9 January 1864, Foster felt sick and went to bed early. He was staying in a poor but decent hotel on the Bowery. On Sunday morning, he spoke to a maid at his door, then turned and fell, breaking a piece of crockery that gashed his neck.
A doctor arrived and the gash was sewn up. Foster was dressed, and taken to a ward for the poor at Bellevue Hospital. He was entered in the register as a "laborer". He was uncomfortable and did not like the food. On 13 January, he was eating soup when he died.
The funeral service was held in Trinity Episcopal Church, Pittsburgh, on 21 January. Foster's coffin was met at the Allegheny Cemetery by a brass band playing his tunes. He was buried near his father and mother.
His death was not recorded in most newspapers.
Many songs were promoted after Foster's death as his very last songs. "The Voices That are Gone" (published in 1865) and "Kiss Me Mother Ere I Die" (1869) are probably, indeed, his last works.
Accolades and honors
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. It is the largest repository for original Stephen Foster compositions, recordings, and other memorabilia his songs have inspired worldwide.
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 Mt. Pisgah State Park in Pennsylvania is named after him.
One state park is named in honor of Foster's songs, My Old Kentucky Home State Park, a historic mansion formerly named Federal Hill, located in Bardstown, Kentucky, where Foster 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!). Held the first weekend of July, Doo Dah Days! celebrates the life and music of one of the most influential songwriters in America's history. His home in the Lawrenceville section of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, still remains on Penn Avenue nearby the Stephen Foster Community Center.
Images for kids
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House in Hoboken, New Jersey where Foster is believed to have written "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair" in 1854
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A Pittsburgh Press illustration of the original headstone on Stephen Foster's grave
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Foster commemorative stamp in the Famous American Composers series, 1940
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The Stephen Collins Foster sketchbook kept in a safe in the research library in the memorial
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Pitt's Stephen Foster Memorial contains two theaters
See also
In Spanish: Stephen Foster para niños
