STEPHEN FOSTER ELEMENTARY SCHOOL
STEPHEN COLLINS
FOSTER
"America's
Most Famous Folksong Writer"
Stephen Collins Foster was born in
Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania on July 4, 1826. The area is part of present-day
Pittsburgh. Stephen Foster's Fourth of July birthday was the country's 50th
anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. His birthday was also the same
day on which the country's second and third presidents, John Adams and Thomas
Jefferson, died. Stephen was the youngest of ten brothers and sisters. He had
some formal education, attending Athens Academy, then a brief period at
Jefferson College, and he was at times privately tutored, as well. He seemed to
like music better than studying, though. He liked to sing and he learned to play
the flute, and may also have played the violin and piano. He began composing his
own songs as a teenager, but his family urged him to find work in a more secure
profession. He went to work for his brother in Cincinnati, who took him on as a
bookkeeper. He also continued composing. His compositions began to be published,
and after three years of bookkeeping, Stephen Foster became a full-time
songwriter.
Stephen Foster created his first songs for
the minstrel shows that were popular in his day. Before he became well-known, he
saw the minstrel stage as the place where he could attract an audience for his
music. "Oh! Susanna" became a national hit in 1848, but Foster
received little financial gain from its popularity. Likewise, he earned very
little for many of his early songs that were written for the minstrel shows. In
1849 he signed a contract with a New York music publisher that allowed him to be
compensated for his work. As he became more well-known, he began to compose less
specifically for the minstrel shows and more for the music of the family parlor.
In 1851 he published "Old Folks at Home", which became the most
popular of all of his songs. When Foster was creating the lyrics for "Old
Folks at Home", he could not come up with a suitable name for the river in
his opening line until he heard of the Suwannee River. The Suwannee runs from
the Okeefenokee Swamp in Georgia through Florida into the Gulf of Mexico.
Although Foster had never seen the Suwannee, he liked the sound of it and it fit
his lyrics. Taking poetic license, he transformed Suwannee into the two-syllable
Swanee that we all recognize in "Way down upon the Swanee River...".
In 1935 the state of Florida officially adopted Stephen Foster's "Old Folks
at Home" as Florida's State song. So although Stephen Foster never set foot
in Florida, his music certainly did.
Foster's songs grew to such popularity
that people all across the country knew his melodies and lyrics. Among his most
enduring compositions are "Oh! Susanna", "Old Folks at
Home", "My Old Kentucky Home" (which the state of Kentucky
adopted with modifications as its official state song in 1986), "Camptown
Races", "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair", and "Beautiful
Dreamer".
At the time of his death in New York in
1864, Stephen Collins Foster had composed some 285 songs and arrangements, many
of them established as true American folk songs that are still enjoyed today.
Source: www.netstate.com/states/peop/people/ky_scf.htm
