Editing Stephen Foster (section)

==Early life==

[[File:Daguerreotype of Eliza Tomlinson Foster and William Barclay Foster, restored and enhanced with digital tools.jpg|thumb|175px|left|Foster's parents, Eliza Tomlinson Foster and William Barclay Foster]]

There are many biographies of Foster, but details differ widely. Among other issues, Foster wrote very little biographical information himself, and his brother [[Morrison Foster]] may have destroyed much information that he judged to reflect negatively upon the family.<ref name="Howard1944">{{cite journal |last1= Howard |first1= John Tasker |title= The Literature on Stephen Foster |journal= Notes: Quarterly Journal of the Music Library Association |volume=1 |issue=2 |date=March 1944 |pages= 10–15 |issn= 0027-4380 |doi= 10.2307/891301 |jstor= 891301 }}</ref><ref name="root-1990">{{cite web |last1=Root |first1=Deane L. |title=The "Mythtory" of Stephen C. Foster or Why His True Story Remains Untold |url=https://www.colorado.edu/amrc/sites/default/files/attached-files/0506-1991-001-00-000002.pdf |website=American Music Research Center |publisher=U. Colorado, Boulder |access-date=25 September 2018 |date=March 1990}}</ref>

Foster was born on July 4, 1826,<ref name=SAND>{{cite journal |last1=Sanders |first1=Paul |title=Comrades, Fill No Glass For Me: Stephen Foster's Medlodies As Borrowed by the American Temperance Movement |journal=Social History of Alcohol and Drugs |date=Fall 2008 |volume=23 |issue=1 |pages=24–40 |url=https://alcoholanddrugshistorysociety.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/shad-23-1-sanders1.pdf |access-date=October 13, 2015 |doi=10.1086/SHAD23010024 |s2cid=165454878 |archive-date=November 17, 2015 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20151117033203/https://alcoholanddrugshistorysociety.files.wordpress.com/2010/11/shad-23-1-sanders1.pdf |url-status=dead }}</ref> in [[Lawrenceville (Pittsburgh)|Lawrenceville, Pennsylvania]]. His parents, [[William Barclay Foster]] and [[Eliza Clayland Tomlinson Foster]], were of [[Ulster Scots people|Ulster Scots]] and [[English people|English]] descent. He had three older sisters and six older brothers. He attended private academies in [[Allegheny, Pennsylvania|Allegheny]], [[Athens, Pennsylvania|Athens]], and [[Towanda, Pennsylvania]], and received an education in English grammar, diction, the classics, penmanship, Latin, Greek, and mathematics.{{citation needed|date=May 2024}}

Foster taught himself to play the clarinet, guitar, flute, and piano. In 1839, his brother William was serving his apprenticeship as an engineer at Towanda and thought that Stephen would benefit from being under the supervision of Henry Kleber (1816–1897), a German-born music dealer in Pittsburgh. Under Kleber, Stephen was exposed to [[music composition]].<ref name=CFAM/> Together the pair studied the works of [[Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart|Mozart]], [[Ludwig van Beethoven|Beethoven]], [[Carl Maria von Weber|Weber]], [[ Felix Mendelssohn|Mendelssohn]] and [[Franz Schubert|Schubert]].

The site of the [[Camptown Races]] – which would provide both the title and setting for events of one of Foster's best-known songs – was located {{convert|30|mi}} from Athens and {{convert|15|mi||}} from Towanda. Foster's education included a brief period at Jefferson College in [[Canonsburg, Pennsylvania]], now part of [[Washington & Jefferson College]].<ref name=doodah />{{#tag:ref | His grandfather James Foster was an associate of [[John McMillan (pastor)|John McMillan]] and a founding trustee of Canonsburg Academy, a predecessor institution to Jefferson College; his father William Barclay Foster attended Canonsburg Academy until age 16.<ref name=milligan>{{Cite book |last= Vincent Milligan |first= Harold |title= Stephen Collins Foster: a biography of America's folk-song composer |publisher= G. Schirmer |year= 1920 |pages= [https://archive.org/details/stephencollinsf00millgoog/page/n19 3]–4 |url= https://archive.org/details/stephencollinsf00millgoog}}</ref> | group="nb" }} His tuition was paid, but he had little spending money.<ref name=doodah /> He left Canonsburg to visit Pittsburgh with another student{{when|date=February 2023}} and did not return.<ref name=doodah>{{cite book |last= Emerson |first= Ken |title= Doo-dah! Steven Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture |publisher= Da Capo Press |year= 1998 |page= 79 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=Ousn0lWqeisC |isbn= 978-0-306-80852-4 }}{{Dead link|date=September 2023 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>