Stephen Collins Foster

Stephen Collins Foster is known as the “Father of American Music” who lived from 1826 to 1864. His music is seen and heard as the fundamentals to Americana, or listening to the history of the United States. He started to write music during the pre-Civil War period when the white culture and black culture were starting to mix to later create a new American culture. Foster’s music combines different cultures together creating an ideal American.

Stephen Foster was born on Independence Day, July 4, 1826. He was the ninth child out of ten brothers and sisters on a wealthy plantation owned by his father, William B. Foster and his mother, Eliza T. Foster. His family was known to be very lively and musical. Misfortune started in the Foster family when little Stephen’s father lost all of his immense properties and started to drink excessively and later died. It is said that longing for a home is one of the foundations behind his music. In 1832, when Stephen was six years old, the family moved to the hustle and bustle of the city of Pittsburgh.

The beginnings of Stephen’s music career started when he was seven years old browsing in a music store. He bought a flageolet and mastered the flute-like instrument. He was often made fun of and scolded by his mother for neglecting to do his school work and spending all his time on the flute. His interest in music started very young and by age fourteen he composed his first piece arranged for four flutes. Stephen loved singing and playing in the parlor to his family. As he got older, his friends and him would stay up all night composing plays and fun songs. Sadly, Stephen was also influenced by the making fun of black slaves. A lot of his little melodies with lyrics were supposed to be comical in a crude black dialect. At eighteen years old, he published his first song, “Open Thy Lattice Love.”

Eventually, because of the hardships sweeping across the country, Foster’s family pushed him to get a job and leave his music composing ideas. At age 20, he worked for his brother in a steamship firm in Cincinnati. Oddly enough, this encouraged Stephen’s passion for music and opened up even more newer ideas for the type of music he wanted to write. His office overlooked where the steamboats would dock and right across the river was Kentucky, a slave state. The racial tension going around America started to spark Foster’s mind into trying to compose music that would combine the different cultures of black slaves, white middle class men, and other immigrants coming into the country. He wished to have all people take pleasure in the music he wrote. “Oh! Susanna” became a big hit and was sung by people all over the different states which became the biggest hit the world had ever known.

Stephen Foster, now 24 years old, returned to Pittsburgh to launch his new career that he dreamed of having. A few months later, he married Jane Denny McDowell on July 22. Unfortunately, Jane was by no means musical and was very practical. Stephen Foster and Jane McDowell were complete opposites. Foster and Jane moved in with his family which was very crowded, and he worked locked in an upstairs studio. This was the only time in his life where he would stay disciplined in his work. He published 16 compositions and many more the next year. He kept his songwriting draft ideas in a sketchbook which is still readable to this day. In 1852, as a honeymoon, Jane and Stephen took a steamboat to New Orleans. This opened up even more doors for Stephen’s music. He had a great opportunity to study various music and poetic styles circulating in the immigrant populations in America!

During this certain period of time was a great downfall to Stephen Foster because there were no such thing as a music business. There was no system of publishers and agents competing to sell new songs, no “performing rights” fees, and no way of earning money with your written music either being played in people‘s homes or in concerts. The only way to earn money was by a 5 to 10 percent royalty on sheet music sales of your own editions by your original publisher, or through the outright purchase of a song by a publisher. There was absolutely no way to know whether or not you were being paid for all the copies your publisher sold as well because there were no attorneys specializing in author’s rights. There were no such thing as a copyright. Before Stephen Foster, the largest scale of sheet music was 5,000 sheets total. With “Oh! Susanna” alone there were 100,000 sheets throughout the states. Foster’s music publisher made tens of thousands of dollars and others profited from pirated versions of his sheet music. For the first time, Foster realized that he too could make money off of his written pieces of music! He never fully grasped the whole idea of making a career with profit making, but it gave great opportunities for other composers after Foster to take in mind how to make a living off of your compositions. People later learned from his mistakes and saw the need to protect your own artistic property. Foster never earned anything from his broadside printings of his lyrics, or from other publishers’ editions of his music. Today, he would be worth millions of dollars a year. Back then, he wasn’t worth anything, but popularity.

Stephen Collins Foster wanted so much to write music that could be widely understood by all groups and cultures in the states. He worked so hard at writing and sometimes took several months just to craft words, melody, and accompaniment before giving it to a publisher. His sketchbook shows that he often labored over the smallest of details, even a simple comma. Foster sought to give meaning to his songs and to have a sense that all people, regardless of their ethnic identities or social and economic class, share the same longings and needs for family and home. His mission was to have a sense of unity in music with white and black races in America. His song, “Old Folks at Home” became a huge hit within the white audience and black audiences. Slaves sang it in the cotton fields and white people played it with their families on the piano in the parlor, both with different images in their heads, but the singing the same thing. His most complex piece was probably the “Social Orchestra,” published in 1854, with 73 arrangements for flute, violin, piano, and other instruments. He was now known as “The Songwriter of America”!

After Stephen Foster’s peak, everything seemed to go downhill. His marriage was no longer because Jane separated him with their only daughter, Marion. His mother died of a stroke and his brother of tuberculosis in January 1855. Foster began to drink more and write less. The contracts ended with two of his only publishers, and he resorted to selling the future rights that he had to all his songs. He moved to New York City to try to save his career. His last song, with the help of George Cooper, was “Beautiful Dreamer” which was one of his most enduring songs. On January 10, 1864, Foster caught a fever and fell in his hotel room and somehow cut his neck. His chambermaid came and saw him lying on the ground in his pool of blood, and he was taken to a hospital three days later, only to die.

Stephen Collins Foster wrote 286 works in less than 20 years: 156 songs with piano accompaniment, 27 hymns, 5 piano pieces, 74 instrumental works and arrangements, 19 arrangements for guitar solo, two translations (from French and German), and three new lyrics to pre-existing melodies.

Foster was a man with a dream, who, with his misfortunes and period of time, did his best to unite America with music. His music has separate styles of songs including: American minstrel, German-art, Irish melodies, Scottish ballads, English pleasure garden style, Italian opera, and African-American religious music. His remarkable work of mixing these styles of music, symbolizes America’s mixture in culture, creating the distinctly American music!

Oh! Susanna Lyrics:

I come from Alabama with my Banjo on my knee I'se gwine to Lou'siana my true lub for to see. It rain'd all night de day I left, de wedder it was dry; The sun so hot I froze to def -- Susanna, don't you cry.

chorus: Oh! Susanna, do not cry for me; I come from Alabama, Wid my Banjo on my knee.

I jump'd aboard the telegraph and trabbled down de ribber, De lectrick fluid magnified, and kill'd five hundred Nigga. De bulgine bust and de hoss ran off, I really thought I'd die; I shut my eyes to hold my bref--Susanna don't you cry.

I had a dream de udder night, when ebry ting was still; I thought I saw Susanna dear, coming down de hill, De buckwheat cake was in her mouf, de tear was in her eye, I says, I'se coming from de souf, --Susanna don't you cry.