Understanding Stephen Collins Foster His World and Music by Joanne O’Connell B.A., University of Miami, 1971 M.A., Florida International University, 2002 Submitted to the Graduate Faculty of the University of Pittsburgh in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy University of Pittsburgh 2007 University of Pittsburgh School of Arts and Sciences This dissertation was presented by Joanne O’Connell It was defended on March 23, 2007 and approved by Dr. Van Beck Hall, Professor, Department of History Dr. Peter Karsten, Professor, Department of History Dr. Deane L. Root, Professor, Department of Music Dissertation Advisor: Dr. Edward Muller, Professor, Department of History ii Copyright by Joanne O’Connell 2007 iii Understanding Stephen Collins Foster, His World and Music Joanne O’Connell, PhD University of Pittsburgh, 2007 This dissertation is an explanation of the life and music of the American composer Stephen Collins Foster in terms of his historical world. Foster captured the essential dynamics of the antebellum mind and heart, which accounted for the immense popularity of his music even during the composer’s lifetime. Consequently, by placing Foster and his music within the historical context of his own antebellum society, culture, and history, I sought explanations for the following: the function of sentimentality in Foster’s tear-inducing parlor songs and in his blackface plantation songs; the Copperhead, anti-Lincoln politics of the Foster family; Foster’s non-companionate marriage to the high-tempered yet independent “Jeanie;” what the young Foster learned during his stay in the free city of Cincinnati, located just across the river from a slave state; Foster’s position on minstrelsy and how he transformed the racially denigrating minstrel song into the refined, sentimental hybrid plantation song that sympathized with the slaves; how and why the piano girls were the major purchasers of Foster’s parlor songs; the meaning behind the ghost-like images of the women in Foster’s songs; life in Civil War New York along the Bowery where Foster spent his final years and a re-evaluation of his New York songs; and, finally, the curious conditions of his tragic death from an “accident” in his hotel room on the Bowery. Although Foster’s association with the minstrel stage is often viewed as a source of embarrassment by twenty-first century Americans, I was able to demonstrate that iv Stephen Foster wrote his greatest plantation songs during the years when blackface minstrelsy expressed sympathy for the slaves, and that he abandoned the genre when it did not. v TABLE OF CONTENTS AKNOWLEDGMENTS........................................................................................................... XII 1.0 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................ 1 2.0 FIRST FAMILIES IN PITTSBURGH .................................................................... 30 2.1 BORN ON THE FOURTH OF JULY ............................................................. 31 2.2 ELIZA AND WILLIAM FOSTER .................................................................. 35 2.3 THE WHITE COTTAGE................................................................................. 44 2.4 WILLIAM B. FOSTER AND THE BATTLE OF NEW ORLEANS........... 46 2.5 SOCIAL STATUS IN PIONEER PITTSBURGH.......................................... 50 2.6 EDUCATING THE FOSTER DAUGHTERS ............................................... 64 2.7 FORECLOSURE AND THE DEPRESSION OF 1819.................................. 70 2.8 ECONOMIC DECLINE ................................................................................... 75 2.9 TRAGEDY AND LOSS .................................................................................... 80 3.0 YOUTH IN ALLEGHENY CITY ............................................................................ 85 3.1 BROTHER WILLIAM ..................................................................................... 86 3.2 THE DEPRESSION OF 1837........................................................................... 97 3.3 NEW NATIONAL BANKRUPTCY LAW .................................................. 100 3.4 EDUCATING STEPHEN FOSTER .............................................................. 102 3.5 AT HOME IN ALLEGHENY ........................................................................ 106 vi 3.6 ETHNIC DIVERSITY .................................................................................... 110 3.7 UGLY RACE RELATIONS IN ALLEGHENY CITY................................ 112 3.8 WEST POINT FANTASY .............................................................................. 116 4.0 THE AWAKENING IN CINCINNATI ................................................................. 122 4.1 MUSICAL BOOKKEEPER........................................................................... 123 4.2 HOTBED OF RACIAL DISSENT................................................................. 129 4.3 THE UNDERGROUND RAILROAD ........................................................... 133 4.4 BLACK IMAGE IN FOSTER’S MIND........................................................ 135 4.5 IRISH OR BLACKS ON THE WATERFRONT?....................................... 138 4.6 CINCINNATI MINSTRELS .......................................................................... 145 4.7 W. C. PETERS AND THE MUSIC PUBLISHERS ..................................... 149 4.8 HARRIET BEECHER STOWE AND ROMANTIC RACIALISM........... 156 4.9 HOME – COMING ......................................................................................... 161 5.0 NON-COMPANIONATE MARRIAGE ................................................................ 168 5.1 JANE MCDOWELL ....................................................................................... 169 5.2 COURTSHIP.................................................................................................... 170 5.3 THE MUSICAL CIRCLE .............................................................................. 175 5.4 MARRIAGE..................................................................................................... 176 5.5 DOMESTIC RESPONSIBILITIES............................................................... 180 5.6 RELIGIOUS DUTIES OF WOMEN............................................................. 182 5.7 THE ROOT OF THE PROBLEM................................................................. 184 5.8 BOAT TRIP SOUTH ...................................................................................... 186 5.9 THE BREAK UP ............................................................................................. 187 vii 5.10 THE DEATH OF ELIZA AND WILLIAM FOSTER................................. 196 5.11 THE SELL OUT.............................................................................................. 199 5.12 DEPRESSION OF 1857 .................................................................................. 202 5.13 HOMELESS AGAIN....................................................................................... 204 5.14 MORE PRODUCTIVE YEARS .................................................................... 205 5.15 BOARDING HOUSE LIFE............................................................................ 209 5.16 THE GASKILL HOUSE................................................................................. 216 5.17 STEPHEN AND JANE IN NEW YORK....................................................... 218 5.18 GENDER ROLES IN DEFAULT .................................................................. 221 5.19 WOMAN TELEGRAPHER........................................................................... 224 5.20 JANE’S LIFE AFTER STEPHEN................................................................. 230 6.0 THE EVOLUTION OF THE PLANTATION SONG.......................................... 233 6.1 EARLY MINSTRELSY: DADDY RICE AND JIM CROW ..................... 234 6.2 BLACKFACE : MEDIATOR OF CLASS, RACE, AND ETHNIC TENSIONS........................................................................................................................ 241 6.3 SCIENTIFIC RACISM................................................................................... 256 6.4 THE THREE ACT MINSTREL SHOW...................................................... 260 6.5 FOSTER’S SENTIMENTAL MINSTRELSY.............................................. 263 6.6 EDWIN P. CHRISTY..................................................................................... 273 6.7 REFINED MINSTRELSY.............................................................................. 277 6.8 MINSTRELSY ABANDONED ...................................................................... 284 7.0 FOSTER’S PLANTATION SONGS...................................................................... 289 7.1 NELLY WAS A LADY ................................................................................... 290 viii 7.2 OLD FOLKS AT HOME................................................................................ 292 7.3 MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME ..................................................................... 297 7.4 OH! BOYS, CARRY ME ’LONG.................................................................. 300 7.5 FAREWELL, MY LILLY DEAR.................................................................. 304 7.6 MASSA’S IN DE COLD GROUND .............................................................. 306 7.7 GLENDY BURKE..........................................................................................