February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
For Foster, then a struggling one-hit-wonder composer (his “Oh! Susanna” had been a smash in 1848), the deal marked a turning point in his career, allowing him to pen some of his most memorable songs.
Stephen Collins Foster was born on July 4, 1826 in the town of Lawrenceville, Pa., just east of Pittsburgh. The ninth of 10 children, he enjoyed a comfortable middle-class childhood and received a solid education from private tutors and at top area schools. From an early age, he demonstrated a talent for music and, contrary to the legend that he was self-taught, received rigorous musical training. As a teen he met regularly with his older brother and friends for long singing sessions, activity that prompted his first compositions. He published his first song, “Open Thy Lattice Love,” when he was just 18.
But Foster’s parents, and perhaps even Foster himself, hardly considered songwriting a promising full-time career. So, at age 20 he moved to Cincinnati and took a job as a bookkeeper with a steamboat company. Still, in his spare time he continued to compose and sold several songs to a local publisher.
The first five failed to catch on, but the sixth, “Oh! Susanna,” became a national sensation and earned for Foster his first significant royalty money (earnings in those days came from the sale of sheet music, a medium notoriously easy to copy and sell illegally). The song also indicated the style of Foster’s many future hits — those that offered a romanticized and idealized vision of slavery and the plantation South. Such songs were immensely popular in the two decades before the Civil War, as was performance genre known as minstrelsy — comedic song and dance shows featuring white actors (invariably Irish American) in black face. Ironically, Foster only visited the South once — in 1854 — long after he’d written some of his most famous songs about the region.
Two years and several more songs after “Oh! Susanna,” Foster quit his bookkeeping job and returned to Pittsburgh to take up composing full time. It was a big gamble on his part, for none of the songs published after “Oh! Susanna” had made much of a splash or earned much money. By devoting all of his time to composing, he reasoned, he was sure to come up with another hit.
His instincts proved correct, for within weeks of his arrival in Pittsburgh he’d penned “De Camptown Races.” Rather than rush to a publisher, however, Foster embarked on a second gamble. Why not offer an exclusive first use of the song to the most famous musical troupe in America, Christy’s Minstrels? And so on Feb. 23, 1850, he sent the song to Edwin Christy in New York City with a letter proposing a partnership. “I wish to unite with you,” he wrote, “in every effort to encourage a taste for this style of music so cried down by opera managers.” He’d write the songs, Christy’s Minstrels would perform and popularize them, and everyone would get rich.
Christy, aware of Foster’s talent and his earlier success with “Oh! Susanna,” eagerly accepted. The idea of having a steady source of fresh material in the intensely competitive world of minstrelsy was too much to resist. As if to prove the wisdom of the arrangement, “De Camptown Races” quickly became the most popular song in America.
For a while it seemed, Stephen Foster was on his way to a lifetime of fame and fortune. Now confident of his future, he married Jane Denny McDowell. A daughter, their only child, was born a year later. Song after song, including some of his most memorable ones like “My Old Kentucky Home,” “The Old Folks at Home” (aka “Swanee River”), and “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair,” flowed from his pen from 1850-54. Royalties poured in and the Fosters grew accustomed to living well.
But while his public career blossomed, Foster’s personal life began to disintegrate. Jane left him in 1853, and even though they reunited in 1854, the marriage remained a troubled one. Then his songwriting stagnated — only nine unexceptional compositions between 1855-1857. Worse still, his income stream slowed to a trickle and he fell into serious debt. Depression set in, followed by alcoholism. In 1860, he moved to New York City in the hope that closer proximity to the minstrel scene would rekindle his artistic fire. Mounting debt and desperation produced a prodigious output of songs over the next few years — 12 in 1860, 16 in 1861, 21 in 1862, and 36 in 1863. Most, however, were slap dash efforts and only two, “Old Black Joe” (1860) and “Beautiful Dreamer” (1863), became hits. Any income he earned was quickly spent or handed over to creditors.
As his career faltered and debts mounted, Foster’s health suffered. By 1864 the era’s greatest songwriter lived in a dingy room in a Bowery hotel. He died there alone, a penniless alcoholic on Jan. 13, 1864. He was only 37.
Foster’s songs would live on for decades to come. Two became state songs, “My Old Kentucky Home” (Kentucky) and “The Old Folks at Home” (Florida), making Foster the only composer so honored. In the 1960s, however, many of his songs fell into disfavor. With the advent of the Civil Rights movement and a more accurate understanding of the brutal realities of slavery, songs about contented “darkies” longing for their kind masters drew scorn (indeed, both Florida and Kentucky updated the lyrics to their state songs in the 1980s by substituting words like “brothers” for “darkies”).
Nevertheless, there remain in the Foster canon (more than 200 songs total) many extraordinary songs that lack such offensive themes. It seems safe to say that glee clubs and choral groups will continue to sing classics like “Oh! Susanna,” “Beautiful Dreamer,” and “De Camptown Races” for many generations to come.
HIBERNIAN HISTORY WEEK
Feb. 19, 1992: IRA fugitive Joe Doherty, held for nine years in U.S. jails with no formal charges being brought against him, is deported to Northern Ireland by the first Bush administration.
Feb. 23, 1836: General Antonio Lopez de Santa Anna begins his siege of the Alamo in Texas. Among the 144 Texans and Americans trapped and eventually killed are many Irish Americans, including Col. William Barrett Travis and Davy Crockett, and at least a dozen Irish-born.
Feb. 20, 1991: Maria Carey wins Grammies for Best New Artist and Best Female Pop Vocal.
HIBERNIAN BIRTHDATES
Feb. 22, 1918: Major League Baseball franchise owner (Kansas City and Oakland) Charles Finley is born in Ensley, Ala.
Feb. 22, 1932: Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, is born in Brookline, Mass.
Feb. 25, 1779: Prolific poet and songwriter Thomas Moore is born in Dublin.