Chapter 1: Pioneer Elites
Chapter 2: Foreclosure and the Death of Charlotte
Chapter 3: All Up and Down the Whole Creation
Chapter 4: Schooling in Brother William’s Sunshine
Chapter 5: At Home in Allegheny
Chapter 6: Musical Bookkeeper
Chapter 7: The Awakening in Cincinnati
Chapter 8: Non-Companionate Marriage
Chapter 9: “Swanee River,” E. P. Christy, and Sentimental
Minstrelsy
Chapter 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 Sellout
Chapter 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
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.
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.
*CHOICE*
Stephen Foster (1826–64) is often remembered as a writer of
plantation songs, but researcher O’Connell describes him as a much
more diverse composer. The author’s dense but fascinating book puts
the life of Foster and his family in context as it relates to U.S.
cultural and political history. This is particularly relevant to
Foster’s works because his pieces were often autobiographical.
Details of dealings with parents, siblings, spouse Jane McDowell,
and publishers are described in great length, as are the many
tragedies through deaths and financial distress experienced by the
Foster family. The unhappiness of his marriage was in part caused
by his alcoholism, which also affected his work. Foster’s political
views were often hidden, and therefore, his sympathy for slaves was
often unknown. He embraced minstrel songs until they were widely
recognized as insulting and then abandoned them for campaign and
parlor songs, variety, and music hall songs. VERDICT All readers
interested in Foster, professional or amateur musicians or
historians included, will delight in the perspective taken by
O’Connell that the man was much more than the few songs for which
he is remembered.
*Library Journal*
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