STEVEN FOSTER

American Folk Song Writer

Stephen Foster was born in Pittsburgh on July 4,1826. His father was William Barclay Foster, a prosperous and influential merchant in Pittsburgh, and his mother, Eliza Clayland Tomlinson, was from an important family of Maryland. William bought a tract of land and laid out a town he named Lawrenceville, which became a section of Pittsburgh and the birthplace of Stephen.

Foster had no real music education, though he did play instruments and even composed his first song (Tioga Waltz) at about age 13. But his parents did not give him a musical environment. In a way this helped him, for he wrote the simple songs of the common people in the interior of the country, including the Negroes working along the Ohio River. His first published song was Open Thy Lattice, Love, written when he was 16 years old. Altogether, he wrote about 200 songs, including Oh, Susannah, My Old Kentucky Home,(the state song of Kentucky), Swanee River,(the state song of Florida), Camptown Races, Jeannie with the Light Brown Hair, and Beautiful Dreamer.

Stephen Foster was perhaps the first American composer to support himself with his music. He wrote many songs for the minstrel shows popular at the time, especially the famous Christy Minstrels, and also composed many hymns. He worked as an accountant for his brother in Cincinnati, Ohio, for two years, which he did not like, and he and his wife lived for a short time in New York, which he also did not like. He traveled to Kentucky, but this was about the only exposure that he had to the South, about which he wrote so many songs. Foster married Jane McDowell, the daughter of a Pittsburgh physician, on July 22, 1850, the first year of his actual career of song writing. Some of his best work was done during his early married years, but it is not known if it was a happy marriage. They separated before his death.

The last four years of his life he spent in New York City. His song writing deteriorated, and he became ill and suffered an accident, which caused his death on January 13, 1864, at the age of 37.