Books

The book collection of the FHC consists of books, printed programs and pamphlets, and broadsides. Items received before 1990 are catalogued, entered in PITTCAT and nationally on OCLC. A small number of items have not yet been added to PITTCAT.  An inventory of uncatalogued books is available upon request.

Books
Printed Programs and Pamphlets
Broadsides
Plays and Poems

Books

Approximately 450 books are boxed in leather slipcovers in the Reading Room of the Stephen Foster Memorial; these were considered by J.K. Lilly to be the core of the collection as it stood in the mid-1930's. Included here are books about music history, Florida and Kentucky History, Western history, American literature and poetry, biographies and anything that contained original information on or that reflected the music, images, life, or family of Stephen Collins Foster. About 80 reference books are also available in the reading room. These were added to the collection after it moved from Indianapolis to Pittsburgh in 1937.

The books housed in the library's Closed Stacks were mostly added to the collection after 1937. Of the 1,000+ books, about 400 are duplicate copies of other books within the collection. Many of the items shelved here are history books dealing with a variety of subjects, including Slavery, the Civil War, Kentucky (and the south in general), and Pittsburgh. In addition, there are a number of books devoted to music history in general and Stephen Foster in particular.

Since many of the books in the FHC are only remotely connected to Stephen Foster, they are likely to be of interest to scholars of Americana as well as to Stephen Foster specialists.

Printed Programs and Pamphlets

Located in FHC are about 729 items classified as printed programs and pamphlets. Included here are any loose-leaf publication from the nineteenth- and twentieth centuries, and consequently there are quite a variety of items in this category. Some of the areas with a substantial number of programs include the following: Foster related theater productions, performances of Foster's music, events of assorted Pittsburgh based organizations in their recognition of historical dates relating to Foster, performances that took place in the Memorial, and a few minstrel shows.

Substantial numbers of pamphlets occur in the following areas: road maps (KY, PA), book catalogs, flyers and pamphlets from places of historical interest in the South, brochures from from foster Memorial in Florida and Kentucky, museum flyers from museums across the country, University of Pittsburgh publications, a few small pamphlets of poetry, and a few nineteenth century programs.

Broadsides

The FHC contains approximately 572 Broadsides, of which 272 are distinct imprints, and approximately 300 are duplicates. The Broadside collection consists of single page items, approximately 6" x 9", that contain the lyrics of one or two Foster songs or parodies of Foster lyrics; 176 of the Broadsides are in black and white; the other 351 are hand tinted, the majority of which were published by Charles Magnus. (The reverse sides of some of these broadsides are ruled and could be used as letter paper).

Plays and Poems

The FHC contains 29 uncatalogued plays and numerous uncatalogued poems in manuscript and typescript about Stephen Foster. The plays include comedies, operettas and musicals, biographical plays, and a few plays for child actors. For a more detailed description of the plays available, the Center has prepared an "Inventory of plays in the Foster Hall Collection."

There are five typescripts included in the Collection: two uncatalogued scripts, "Singing America", a television program written by John Tasker Howard, and the movie script from Harmony Lane (Mascott Pictures, 1944); cataloged typescripts, Beautiful Dreamer: The Life and Times of Stephen C. Foster by Richard Atwood, the typescript from the Twentieth Century Fox film Swanee River (1939) written by John Tainter Foote and Phillip Dunne.

A detailed description of the collection's many uncatalogued poems entitled "Inventory of Poems in the Foster Hall Collection (1995)," is available.

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