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Top 10 Astonishing Facts about Stephen Foster

Stephen Collins Foster was an American composer and songwriter known primarily for his parlour and minstrel music during the Romantic period. He served as both composer and lyricist to his songs, which numbered over two hundred. He is often described as a melodic genius with tender, sympathetic lyrics and infectious rhythm

Foster is often credited as “America’s First Composer” and widely regarded as one of the first who made professional songwriting profitable. Fosters’ songs were the first genuinely American in theme, characterizing love of home, American temperament, river life and work, politics, battlefields, slavery and plantation life.

Below are the top 10 astonishing facts about Stephen Foster;

1. He shared his birthday with the nation

Fourth July celebration – Flickr

Stephen Foster was born on July 4, 1826, in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania to William Barclay Foster and Eliza Clayland Tomlinson Foster. He had three older sisters and six older brothers, with the tenth child dying as an infant, leaving Stephen as the “baby” of the family to be indulged by older brothers and sisters.

4^th of July is a federal holiday in the United States, commemorating the Declaration of Independence of the United States in 1776. The Continental Congress declared that the thirteen American colonies were no longer subject (and subordinate) to the monarch of Britain, King George III, and were now united, free, and independent states.

2. A Common misconception

White Cottage, 1820 – Wikimedia Commons

It has always been assumed that a house at 3600 Penn Ave. in Lawrenceville is the Foster homestead. However, according to Lawrenceville historian Jim Wudarczyk Foster was born on that the site, but that was not his birthplace.

The house built by his father, William, in 1814 and referred to as the White Cottage, burned during the Civil War. The house that stands on the property was built several years after Foster’s death by industrialist Andrew Kloman, a partner of Andrew Carnegie.

3. Passion does not entertain excuses

Dan Rice – Wikipedia

Stephen Foster wrote more than 200 songs, with many of his compositions remaining popular to this date. He has been identified as “the most famous songwriter of the nineteenth century” and may be the most recognizable American composer in other countries.

With such an enormous legacy, it is hard to believe that Stephen had little formal training in music. He taught himself to play the clarinet, guitar, flute, and piano. Despite this, he published several songs before the age of twenty.

However, there is a probability that Stephen received little formal training from Henry Kleber, a German-born music dealer in Pittsburgh and Dan Rice, a clown and blackface singer who made his living in traveling circuses.

4. A feat accomplished by no other American

My Old Kentucky Home – Wikipedia

Foster is the only American composer credited with writing two official state songs. “Old Folks at Home” also known as “Swanee River” was written in 1853. Since 1935, it has been the official state song of Florida, although in 2008 the original lyrics were revised.

“My Old Kentucky Home, Good-Night! Composed in 1852 and most likely inspired by Harriet Beecher Stowe’s anti-slavery novel Uncle Tom’s Cabin, as evidenced by the title of a sketch in Foster鈥檚 sketchbook, 鈥淧oor Uncle Tom, Good-Night!鈥� The song’s first verse and chorus are recited annually at the Kentucky Derby. Colonel Matt Winn introduced the song as a Derby tradition. The state legislature of the Commonwealth in 1928 established it as Kentucky’s state song.

5. This is tricky

Old Black Joe by Stephen Foster, 1860 – Wikipedia

Foster is known to never wrote lyrics as blatant as those for “Jump Jim Crow” or “Zip Coon,” however, dialect images of Blacks in some of his earlier songs are indeed troubling. Many of his songs were used in blackface minstrel show entertainment popular at the time.

On the other hand, Foster eventually eliminated dialect from his songs, and never allowed cartoons of slaves on his authorized sheet music, although this did occur on pirated editions beyond his control. He is credited with being among the first musicians to dignify and humanize blacks through his songs.

The paradox is in his depiction of black characters he was in deed a racist however in the words of Douglass Foster鈥檚 songs 鈥渁waken the sympathies for the slave, in which anti-slavery principles take root鈥�; their popularity abroad rouses 鈥渢he moral sense of the civilized world.鈥�

6. A nation of equals

Monument to Stephen Foster – Wikimedia Commons

On April 26^th 2018 the statue of Stephen Foster was removed on the unanimous vote of the Pittsburgh Art Commission. According to the Post-Gazette the statue, 鈥済lorifies white appropriation of black culture, and depicts the vacantly smiling musician in a way that is at best condescending and at worst racist.鈥�

The work of art was composed of two figures: a seated Stephen Collins Foster, who is depicted with a notebook in hand, and an African American man at his feet strumming a banjo, thought to represent “Uncle Ned,” a fictionalized slave featured in Foster’s song of the same name. It was created in 1900 by Italian sculptor Giuseppe Moretti.

7. Lack of inspiration

Jane McDowell Foster Wiley – Wikipedia

In 1854 Foster separated with his wife after numerous conflicts. Burdened with the loss of his family, the death of his parents the following year, as well as with his declining health and alcoholism, the quality of Foster’s creative output greatly diminished.

In the 1860s, he focused on sentimental ballads rather than minstrel songs, and of the many songs penned during his last years, only “Beautiful Dreamer” (1864) has achieved the status of his earlier works.

8. The unsolved mystery

Morrison Foster – Wikipedia

In January 1864, Foster became sick with a fever, he fell in his hotel in the Bowery, cutting his neck. His writing partner George Cooper found him still alive, but lying in a pool of blood. Foster died in Bellevue Hospital three days later at the age of 37.

Historian JoAnne O’Connell speculates in her biography, The Life and Songs of Stephen Foster, that Foster may have killed himself, a common occurrence during the Civil War. Also, musicologist Ken Emerson noted, several of the songs Foster wrote during the last years of his life foreshadow his death.

His brother Morrison, who was not in New York, said Foster was ill and cut his neck on a washbasin. Cooper mentioned no broken crockery.

9. From fame and riches to rugs

Illustration of Stephen Foster headstone in Alleghney cemetery,1900 – Wikipedia

Even though by 1853 Foster had an exclusive contract with music publisher Firth, Pond, and Company, his financial situation became unstable, due in part to the lack of copyright protection for his songs. When Foster died, his leather wallet contained a scrap of paper that simply said, “Dear friends and gentle hearts”, along with 37 cents.

Although penniless when he died, Foster bestowed on America a rich legacy of memorable songs.

10. Beyond the USA borders

Jeanie with the brown hair – IMDb

Foster鈥檚 music continues to be popular in China and Japan, so much so that he and his wife, Jane, were the focus of a popular Japanese anime TV series in the 1990s. Most Japanese students learn a number of Foster’s songs in their music classes, from elementary through high school.

Since the late nineteenth century, Stephen Foster’s songs have been among the best-known American music in Japan for his simple, familiar tunes, which Japanese people associate with pastoral scenery or nostalgia for their native place or their childhood.