When was stephen foster born

Stephen Collins Foster was born in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania on July 4, , to a politically and socially prominent Pittsburgh family. In , Foster attended Allegheny Academy, the first of three failed scholarly attempts, followed by Athens Academy and Towanda Academy. At Athens, the fourteen-year old Foster wrote his first song "The Tioga Waltz" not published until after his death.

In July , Foster enrolled in Jefferson College at Canonsburg, PA, however struck with desperate homesickness, his attendance lasted 1 week and from to , he lived with his family in Pittsburgh doing private study.

It was during this time that his musical genius began to unfold and in , his first song was published "Open Thy Lattice Love" and in , during a family concert at the Foster House, "Lou'siana Belle", "Old Uncle Ned" and "Oh! Susanna" were introduced for the first time. Cincinnati society was a convergence of the Industrial working class, Irish, English and Scottish aristocracy, plantation slaves and river life.

Foster soon abandoned the pursuit of business and dedicated himself to writing songs inspired by the cultures that surrounded him. In , he sold "Oh! Susana" and "Old Uncle Ned" to W. He moved back to Pittsburgh in and in the following six years penned more than songs. During this time, Foster began corresponding with E. The creation of the American minstrel show is credited to Thomas Dartmouth "Daddy" Rice , an actor whose performance of the song " Jump Jim Crow " in the dress of an aged African American created an overnight sensation in Pittsburgh.

The tune was written down and given a piano accompaniment by W. Peters, a music shop owner in Pittsburgh. For many years, minstrels performed with circuses and traveling zoos. In the s, they organized themselves into quartets, bands, and other ensembles and performed in theatres and other halls. One Nelson Kneass performed as a minstrel, but disbanded his group in Pittsburgh about He opened a hall with a stage at one end, and served refreshments for the price of a ticket.

Prizes were offered for the best riddles, etc. Foster was living in Cinncinati in and , but his brother Morrison wrote him asking for a song. The song did not win the contest but set Foster on the road to minstrel songwriting.

Foster wrote 28 songs for the minstrel stage. They differ substantially in subject matter and musical style from his household songs. They are written in a negro dialect and their accompaniments suggest banjo -picking. Their musical style is sourced to African American music and the traditional and folk music of British Americans. Many of these songs were written for minstrel groups of the period such as the Sable Harmonists and the Christy Minstrels.

A typical minstrel song by Foster is set for solo voice with a four or five part chorus in the refrain and a short instrumental section intended for a dance on the stage. The best of these songs are " Oh! She was the daughter of Andrew N. The attraction between Foster and McDowell remains a mystery: Jane was on the edge of the Foster circle of friends, and had no special musical talents or interests. She may have broken an engagement to another man to marry Foster.

The couple's only child Marion, a daughter, was born on April 18, The marriage was troubled for unknown reasons, and the couple lived apart. They had separated for the first time by the spring of Jane took Marion to Lewistown, Pennsylvania, where her mother and sister lived. Stephen went to New York City to pursue songwriting.

The couple reunited within a year, but separated again and again. He was having money troubles, and his alcoholism was worsening. Jane moved to Greensburg, Pennsylvania, where she worked as a telegraph operator for the Pennsylvania Railroad.

Her daughter was probably left with relatives elsewhere. At an unknown date after Stephen's death in , Jane married Matthew D. Wiley, a baggage handler and express agent. She worked as a telegraph operator at the Pennsylvania Railroad's Allegheny depot. She supported several relatives including her daughter, her mother, and her grandchildren. She died in of burns suffered when a spark set her clothing on fire while she dozed near a fireplace.

Marion Foster - married William Welsh and had three children. After living in St. Louis and Chicago , she moved in to a mansion as caretaker on the site of her grandparents' home in Lawrenceville.

She was poor, gave piano lessons into her seventies, and battled the government unsuccessfully for repossession of a piece of land once belonging to her grandfather. In July , the people of the United States saw the worst riots in the nation's history. In New York City, rioters protested America's first draft. They believed this draft was unfair. Some of his earliest songs--perhaps including "Oh! Susanna"--were composed for the group. His first published song, "Open Thy Lattice Love", appeared from a Philadelphia music publisher when Stephen was only At age 20, Stephen went to work as a bookkeeper for his brother Dunning's steamship firm in Cincinnati.

There he also sold some of his songs and piano pieces to a local music publisher and had his first big hit with "Oh! Their daughter Marion Marion Foster was born the following year. In the couple took a delayed honeymoon, a month-long steamship ride to New Orleans with friends, the only trip Stephen ever made to the deep south he had visited Ohio River towns in Kentucky as a child.

They returned to Pittsburgh later that year, living first in the family home and then a series of boarding houses after both of his parents died in Another thread in the mythic fabric is that Foster dashed off perfect masterpieces in a flash of inspiration, songs expressing the sentiment of American ante-bellum South. Yet, aside from these absences, visits to the family in Ohio, and until he went to New York for good in , Stephen spent much of his life in Pittsburgh where he worked consistently at his songwriting, keeping a thick sketchbook to draft ideas for song lyrics and melodies.

As a professional songwriter of unparalleled skill and technique--not an untutored musical genius--he had made it his business to study the various music and poetic styles circulating in the immigrant populations of the new United States. His intention was to write the people's music, using images and a musical vocabulary that would be widely understood by all groups. Foster worked very hard at writing, sometimes taking several months to craft and polish the words, melody, and accompaniment of a song before sending it off to a publisher.

His sketchbook shows that he often labored over the smallest details, the right prepositions, even where to include or remove a comma from his lyrics.