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This website examines the work and life of nineteenth-century songwriter Stephen Collins Foster through the lens of “home”—both the concept and the physical structures prevalent during the early to mid-Victorian era. It draws upon letters, sheet music, audio recordings, Stephen’s personal manuscript book and account ledger, and other artifacts and related materials housed in the Foster Hall Collection, Center for American Music, University of Pittsburgh Library System.
The six sections of the site are arranged chronologically, following Stephen from his birthplace in just outside of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, on July 4, 1826, to Bellevue Hospital in New York City where he died on January 13, 1864. During his 37 years he would live in countless houses, boardinghouses, rooms, hotels, and hovels. His music ranges from classical compositions and piano songs played and sung in the parlors of the new commercially-driven American middle class, to minstrel tunes and “Plantation Melodies” performed by troupes of white men in blackface. Some of the central themes of his songs are home, enslavement, war, mourning, and death—all of which reflect an artist “at home” creatively, socially, politically, and economically in the ages of Jacksonian Democracy, Manifest Destiny, and Civil War.
For the Victorians, “home” was a sacred concept as well as a place. It pervaded their poems, prose, pictures, and music. They read about it in books such as Little Women, and sang about it in songs such as “Home! Sweet Home!”, an 1823 ballad by Henry Bishop (composer) and John Howard Payne (lyricist). Oliver Wendell Holmes believed that home was more about affection and familial warmth than the mere physical structure. He wrote: “Beauty is a great thing, but beauty of garment, house, and furniture are tawdry ornaments compared with domestic love.” At the center of this idea were women—more specifically, mothers. The nineteenth century was the era of the Cult of Domesticity, an ideology centered in the notion that a woman’s “place” was at home with her children. The ideal woman would be virtuous and submissive and provide a sanctuary for men struggling with the pressures of the emerging highly-competitive national marketplace. In The Bridal Gift—a small 3.75" by 4.25" book published in 1836 (Fig. 1) as a sort of woman's instructional manual—sums up the Cult of Domesticity in a single passage: [i]
The good wife is one who is strictly and conscientiously
virtuous; she is humble and modest from reason and con-
viction, submissive from choice and obedient from inclin-
ation . . . she makes it her delight to please her husband,
being confident that every thing that promotes his happi-
ness must in the end contribute to her own . . .
As with any creative work, it can be dangerous to view the productions of an artist as a direct reflection of his or her life, unless that artist leaves some form of corroborating documentary proof. This has not prevented many scholars from trying, however. For example, in his 1934 biography Stephen Foster: America’s Troubadour (Fig. 2), John Tasker Howard relied on the themes in Stephen’s music to argue his claim that “love of home was Foster’s dominant passion.” Home was certainly one of the central themes in Foster’s compositions, as it was in much art and music of the time. The word “home,” written either by him or contemporary poets whose lyrics he set to music, is mentioned 115 times across 47 songs. In the end, however, it is difficult to tie the sentiments in his compositions to his personal feelings and beliefs. [ii]
Stephen’s story has been considered through many interpretive lenses by historians and biographers during the 158 years since his death. His early chroniclers viewed his life and work more sympathetically than contemporary researchers, who have turned a critical eye on some of the earlier conclusions made about the composer and the meaning of his songs. A good example of this is the question regarding his position on slavery. Did Stephen have abolitionist or anti-abolitionist leanings? There is evidence on both sides, much of it intriguing, some of it convincing, yet not overwhelming enough for one seeking to come to a consensus on the matter (this question is considered in the section “Songs of Slavery and Home”). In fact, one of the most unsettling conclusions this researcher came to while studying Stephen is that since so much of the existing evidence related to him is second-hand or hearsay, the more one examines his life and work the more he seems to disappear.
Only 28 pieces of Stephen Foster’s personal correspondence survive. Morrison Foster burned many of the family letters in 1855. Lacking a wealth of personal correspondence, scholars have had to rely on anecdotes, recollections, and “reminiscences” by Stephen’s contemporaries in order to piece together the narrative of his life. Harold Vincent Milligan, an early biographer of the composer, describes these sources as generally “imaginary” and that “very little in any of them [is] worthy of credence.” Even a letter that Stephen wrote to minstrel impresario E. P. Christy in 1852 (Fig. 3) which offers some insight as to why Stephen decided to refine his minstrel songs into ones which would be acceptable to white middle-class parlors, does not exist in his hand. [iii]
Unfortunately in many cases, ambiguity is what we are left with when it comes to Stephen Foster. Almost every song he wrote was for the market, so he was primarily a commercial composer. But how much were the songs he wrote based on his own life experiences? And how much were the songs shaped by commercial and other influences? Were the songs he wrote about African Americans, misguided as their representations often were, rooted in abolitionist sentiments? Like his songs, a definitive account of his personal beliefs and political feelings elude us.