Life and Songs of Stephen Foster

JoAnne O’Connell has a background in history and classical vocal music. She earned her PhD at the University of Pittsburgh where she began researching her revisionist biography of the Pittsburgh born composer Stephen Collins Foster. She has taught at colleges and universities in Pennsylvania and Maryland, and currently spends her time researching and writing.

• Chapter 1: Pioneer Elites Chapter 2: Foreclosure and the Death of CharlotteChapter 3: All Up and Down the Whole Creation Chapter 4: Schooling in Brother William’s Sunshine Chapter 5: At Home in AlleghenyChapter 6: Musical Bookkeeper Chapter 7: The Awakening in Cincinnati Chapter 8: Non-Companionate Marriage Chapter 9: “Swanee River,” E. P. Christy, and Sentimental MinstrelsyChapter 10: Shiras and the Antislavery Impulse Chapter 11: Piano Girls and Parlor Songs Chapter 12: Hoboken and Deaths in the Family Chapter 13: The Buchanan Glee Club Chapter 14: Royalties SelloutChapter 15: New York “Potboilers”Chapter 16: War Songs and Copperhead Relatives Chapter 17: The Foster – Cooper “Song Factory” Chapter 18: Concert Saloons and Variety Music Chapter 19: Last Days on the Bowery Chapter 20: Accidental Death or Suicide?Epilogue: What Came Afterwards

Almost everyone knows something about Stephen Foster (1826–64), but unfortunately much of that information is either incorrect or vastly oversimplified. Many believe that Foster, the first American popular songwriter to make his living entirely from composing, was a Southerner. In fact Foster lived most of his life near Pittsburgh. Everyone knows he wrote minstrel and plantation songs that are now considered racist, but few know that he also wrote songs in support of Abraham Lincoln and the Union cause, not to mention sentimental parlor songs, comic songs for the stage, and hymns. O’Connell’s rich retelling of Foster’s story covers all this. Foster’s brother, Morrison Foster, destroyed hundreds of family letters, leaving wide gaps in the songwriter’s life story. O’Connell fills those gaps by examining musical, political, economic, and social writings of the day, and she addresses the thorny issues of race and gender. She refutes earlier claims that nearly all of Foster’s compositions after 1860 were inferior, and dares to speculate on the mysterious circumstances of Foster’s untimely death. This beautifully written biography provides important new insights into the complex life of one of America’s most controversial popular songwriters.Summing Up:Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through faculty; general readers.