Stephen Foster Memorial Day
Stephen Foster Memorial Day is observed annually on January 13, commemorating the death of American songwriter Stephen Foster in 1864. This day is recognized by a presidential proclamation, which encourages ceremonies, musical programs, and pilgrimages to honor his contributions to American music. Foster, born on July 4, 1826, in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, is known for his significant impact on the genre of minstrel music, despite the racial complexities associated with it. He began his career writing music for minstrel shows, achieving great popularity with songs such as "Oh! Susanna," "Camptown Races," and "Beautiful Dreamer." Foster's life was marked by financial struggles and personal challenges, including alcoholism and health issues, which ultimately led to his decline. He died at the young age of 37 in a New York City hospital, but his legacy endures, as he was posthumously inducted into the Hall of Fame for Great Americans in 1940. Stephen Foster Memorial Day serves as a reminder of his artistic contributions and the cultural context in which he created his work.
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Stephen Foster Memorial Day
Stephen Foster Memorial Day
The anniversary of the death of the great song and ballad writer Stephen Foster on January 13, 1864, is marked annually by proclamation of the president as the national Stephen Foster Memorial Day. Presidential proclamation 2957 of December 13, 1951, designated January 13 as the day for “appropriate ceremonies, pilgrimages to his shrines, and musical programs featuring his compositions.”
Stephen Collins Foster was born on July 4, 1826, in what is now Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The 10th of 11 children of a prosperous family, he was six when he first gave indications of what his father called his “strange talent” for music. Foster learned how to play the piano and began to play for the various “blackface” minstrel shows of the time, in which white actors wearing makeup imitated and mocked African Americans (who were, of course, still slaves at the time).
Since Foster had no inclination toward formal training in music and his family did not urge him to pursue such study, his technical background was always minimal. He briefly attended Jefferson College and later went to work as a bookkeeper for a brother in Cincinnati. It was in Cincinnati that several of his songs were published locally (in 1848), and one of them, “Oh! Susanna,” swept the country shortly thereafter. This sensation prompted him to become a full-time songwriter.
Although some of his compositions were the sentimental ballads of the day, he found his best outlet in minstrel shows, selling many of his numbers to E. P. Christy, who headed a famous troupe. Foster usually wrote both the words and music for his compositions. Despite the phenomenal growth of his popularity between 1850 and 1854, however, he was a poor businessman and never reaped the proportionate financial returns. His songs, which ultimately numbered more than 200, include such famous tunes as “Camptown Races,” “Jeanie with the Light Brown Hair” (which he wrote for his wife Jane), and the slow waltz “Beautiful Dreamer.”
Poverty forced Foster to sell his compositions for immediate cash at the sacrifice of future royalties. The quality of his work deteriorated under the pressure for quick compensation, complicated by the alcoholism and (according to at least one source) tuberculosis with which he was afflicted after 1860. He spent his last years alone, living in rooming houses in New York City's Bowery slum. There he suffered a fall that proved to be fatal. He died, at the age of 37, in the charity ward of Bellevue Hospital on January 13, 1864. Tragic as his short life was, he was not forgotten, and in 1940 he was the first musician elected to the Hall of Fame for Great Americans.