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Stephen Foster
American composer and songwriter (1826–1864)
For other uses, see Stephen Foster (disambiguation).
Stephen Collins Foster (July 4, 1826 – January 13, 1864), known as "the father of American music", was an American composer known primarily for his parlour and folk music during the Romantic period. He wrote more than 200 songs, including "Oh! Susanna", "Hard Times Come Again No More", "Camptown Races", "Old Folks at Home" ("Swanee River"), "My Old Kentucky Home", "Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair", "Old Black Joe", and "Beautiful Dreamer". Many of his compositions remain popular today.
Early life
[edit]There are many biographies of Foster, but details differ widely. Among other issues, Foster wrote very little biographical information himself, and his brother Morrison Foster may have destroyed much information that he judged to reflect negatively upon the family.[4][5]
Foster was born on July 4, 1826,[6] in Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania. His parents, William Barclay Foster and Eliza Clayland Tomlinson Foster, were of Ulster Scots and English descent. He had three older sisters and six older brothers. He attended private academies in Allegheny, Athens, and Towanda, Pennsylvania, and received an education in E
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By Christopher Lynch
Stephen Foster (b. July 4, 1826, Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania; d. January 13, 1864, New York) was one of the first American songwriters to earn a living through composition alone. Many of his songs, most of which were for the parlor or minstrel stage, achieved great popularity during his lifetime and continue to be popular today. His songs depicting African Americans, however, have been controversial since they were written.
Foster’s father, William Barclay Foster (1779–1855), moved to Pittsburgh in 1796 and quickly entered what Foster biographer John Tasker Howard refers to as the “pioneer aristocracy of Pittsburgh” (p. 4)—a relatively small group of the region’s wealthy “founding fathers.” As a merchant in the 1790s and first decade of the 1800s, William’s business travels took him down the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and to cities along the Gulf of Mexico and up the Eastern Seaboard. It was likely on one of his business trips that he met Eliza Clayland Tomlinson (1788–1855), whom he married in 1807. Together they had ten children, seven of whom lived beyond childhood: Ann Eliza (1808; died in infancy), Charlotte (1809–29), Ann Eliza (1812–91), William Jr. (1814–15), H
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