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Place to write article on the Center for American Music Library.

Lead The Center for American Music's library collection began in the 1930s when the Center's core collection, The Foster Hall Collection was being assembled by Josiah Kirby Lilly, Sr. Mr. Lilly's interest in Stephen Foster can be traced back to his youth, in Greencastle, Indiana, when he used to hear the students at Asbury College (now DePauw University) singing Foster's songs. Throughout his life, Mr. Lilly enjoyed hearing Foster's music performed, but it was not until 1930, when he was about to retire from his family's pharmaceutical business, that he became actively interested in collecting material relating to Foster. As a retirement gift he was presented with a set of phonographic recordings of Foster's music. His son, a bibliophile, suggested to him that it might be an interesting hobby to collect the early editions of these songs he loved so well. Mr. Lilly wrote to several dealers in Americana, from whom he acquired a few first and early editions of Foster's songs. On January 5, 1931, he acquired from a Boston dealer several hundred early editions of Foster's music, including nearly one hundred first editions. He now had the most important collection of Foster's music that had yet been brought together, yet it was far from complete. In addition to missing at least half of Foster's songs, he possessed no Foster manuscripts, no letters, none of Stephen's personal possessions, no pictures, no bibliography on the subject.

Mr. Lilly organized the work of solving his collecting problems in businesslike fashion. Not long after the collection was founded, he realized that his interest would soon pass the stage of a one-man hobby, and that assistance would be necessary. He hired Walter R. Whittlesey, a research worker and musicologist of Washington, D. C., for thirty-five years a member of the staff of the music division of the Library of Congress. As the collection grew in size, other members were added to the Foster Hall staff, in both Indianapolis and Washington. The work was divided into the classifications of acquiring, research, cataloguing, mounting, and correspondence. At one time, eleven persons were engaged in carrying on the work.

Many others, not directly associated with Foster Hall, assisted in the building up of the collection. Dealers in books and music who had Foster material for sale or exchange, fellow-collectors, and all persons interested in Stephen Foster were invited to communicate with Foster Hall. For their benefit an informal magazine, entitled the Foster Hall Bulletin, was published and distributed gratuitously. This bulletin contained news of interest to the Foster collector: the discovery of new songs, reprints of Foster letters, the establishment of memorials to the composer. Each issue contained a list of the songs still needed by the Foster Hall Collection, and the prices offered for them. The relatives of Stephen Foster aided in the work. Mrs. Jessie W. Rose of Pittsburgh, granddaughter of the composer, and Mrs. Evelyn Foster Morneweck of Detroit, daughter of his brother, Morrison Foster, rendered especially valuable service. Original letters and manuscripts, personal possessions of Foster, and other source material not obtainable elsewhere were added to the collection through their cooperation. Moreover, musicians, librarians, curators, students of Americana, sent information and material. Letters were received from all parts of the United States, from Canada and Great Britain, and material poured in from every quarter and in every form.

The result, after several years of work, was a comprehensive collection of more than ten thousand separate items, carefully catalogued and prepared for preservation and use, including: original manuscripts; facsimiles of manuscripts in other collections; first, early, and modern editions of Foster's music; Foster's own possessions; books relating to the composer in whole or in part; songbooks containing his music; magazine and newspaper articles; pictures and portraits; phonograph records; broadsides; and miscellaneous Fosteriana.

He possessed, in the suburbs of Indianapolis, a small granite building used as a library and music hall. He placed his collection in this building, which was then named Foster Hall. More than fifteen thousand visitors came to Foster Hall during its six years of existence in Indianapolis, not only from Indiana and the Middle West, but from other sections. At least once a week Foster programs were presented at the hall, consisting of a lecture on the composer, a display of the material in the collection, and Foster music by a quartet.

After he had founded his collection, Mr. Lilly contemplated what it's future should be. He heard of the Stephen Foster Memorial, planned by the Tuesday Musical Club and the University of Pittsburgh. When the building's financial campaign stalled, he periodically helped contribute money to it and, in the process, formed a close relationship with the University's chancellor, John G. Bowman. At a dinner given in Mr. Lilly's honor, he announced his intention to present the collection, and its curator, Fletcher Hodges, Jr., to the University to be housed in the completed Memorial.In 1937 it was transferred in its entirety from Indianapolis to its new home. The work of Foster Hall, under the auspices of the University of Pittsburgh, was an uninterrupted continuation of its former activities in Indianapolis. Its facilities were available to student or writer, publications are sent out, schools and clubs are assisted in the preparation of Foster programs, the collection is exhibited to visitors, programs are held in the memorial.

Since 1937, the holdings have trebled; the Foster Hall collection, referred to as the Stephen Foster Memorial, collected reference and research materials for American music, with an emphasis on popular culture of the period between 1840 and 1940. Because Foster's music and images have pervaded all classes of American society from the late 1840s to the present, the Memorial offers a rare vantage point from which to interpret American cultural history. The collection was helmed by Lilly's original curator, Fletcher Hodges, Jr., who took pains to assist scholars and authors who wanted access to the collection. In 1982, upon Mr. Hodges retirement, Dr. Deane L. Root took over as curator.

The holdings were called, in the words of a 1985 NEH-funded assessment, "one of the major research collections for 19th-century American music, and American culture in general, in the entire country" with "a large and priceless collection of 19th-century song." Since 1987, the Memorial systematically filed its archival papers; documented the art works; produced a guide to the collections; catalogued its books, serials, songbooks, songsters, music scores, programs, pamphlets, and broadsides with two major grants from the NEH Research Program; and created MARC-format pre-catalog records for other holdings. The catalog records are available on cards in the Center, via the University's on-line catalog Pittcat, and internationally via OCLC. Photographs are made of any item at cost; interlibrary loan is available through photocopies and cassettes. Although holdings are non-circulating, materials are loaned to other institutions.

In 1996, the Stephen Foster Memorial was rebranded as the Center for American Music to better represent the Center's vast holdings which extend beyond Stephen Foster's music. In the years since, the Center has continued Mr. Lilly's original goals of documenting, researching, and providing access to Foster's materials. The Center has also focussed on making the collection's materials accessible through the world wide web, digitizing the majority of Mr. Lilly's original collection, including all of Foster's published sheet music, manuscripts, family correspondence, and business records. The Center has added the collections of several other Pittsburgh-area composers to its holdings and, in 1999, launched Voices Across Time, a curriculum support guide that provides teachers with the tools to integrate historical American music into whatever subject area they teach. This guide has led to five NEH Support summer Institutes for Teachers that has allowed, for each session, 25 teachers from all over the U.S. to travel to Pittsburgh to learn how to integrate Voices Across Time into their classrooms.

The Center has also actively participated in a number of high profile Stephen Foster projects, including being the primary point of research for Ken Emerson's 1997 biography of Foster, Doo-Dah! Stephen Foster and the Rise of American Popular Culture (Simon & Schuster), filming and research locations for two Foster documentaries (ARTE-TVs 1996 German-language documentary and the 2001 PBS American Experience episode "Stephen Foster"), and assisting with research and song selection for American Roots Publishing's Grammy-Award winning album, Beautiful Dreamer: the Songs of Stephen Foster (2004).

The Center for American Music's library collections are housed in the Stephen Foster Memorial on the University of Pittsburgh's Oakland Campus. The building came about through the efforts of the Tuesday Musical Club of Pittsburgh, which first proposed the idea of a memorial to Foster in 1927. They approached the University of Pittsburgh about the project and the University offered a site for the memorial on its campus and agreed to operate and maintain the building after its construction. The half million dollars necessary for construction were raised via donations from Pittsburgh citizens, schools students, and fans of Foster's music throughout the U.S. Ground was broken on January 13, 1935 (the seventy-fifth anniversary of Stephen's death), the cornerstone was laid on June 3, 1935, and the building was formally dedicated on June 2, 1937.

The gothic style building was designed by charles Z. Kaluder, who also designed the University of pittsburgh's Cathedral of Learning and heinz memorial chapel, and features stained glass windows designed by Charles Connick and iron work by Samuel Yellin.

In addition to the library and archive, the building also holds a twelve-sided shrine to Foster which includes exhibits on his life and career. It is also home to two theaters operated by the University of Pittsburgh's Theater Department: The Charity Randall Theater and the Henry Heymann Theater, the latter of which used to be a large social room in the building's lower level.

Donors
The primary donor for the Foster Hall Collection was Josiah Kirby Lilly, who assembled the original collection and contributed to the Stephen Foster Memorial building fund. Other collections, decribed below, were either donated by the collectors or purchased by the Center.

Collections
The the Center for American Music is home to the:

Foster Hall Collection: The Foster Hall Collection consists of music manuscripts, Stephen Foster's bound sketchbook, his bound account book, his personal and family correspondence, musical instruments, business records, photographs, newspaper clippings, personal posessions and other ephemera. The collection also includes early-format recordings of Foster's music (including roller barrel organ cobs, music box discs, Edison cylinders and 78-rpm discs), periodicals and books mentioning Foster and/or one of his songs, published sheet music and songbooks, broadsides and songsters, lantern slides, works of art (including sculptures, paintings, and folk art), and tributes. While the bulk of the Collection was acquired by Josiah K. Lilly, the Center for American music has continued to acquire items related to Foster.

Ethelbert Nevin Collection: Collected by the Nevin family and donated to the University of Pittsburgh, the 26 linear feet of holdings include hundreds of original manuscripts, letters, photographs, mementos, furnishings, printed matter and special gifts related to the life and career of Sewickley native Ethelbert Nevin (1862-1901), pianist and composer of a large number of piano pieces, including one of the most popular songs of the late 19th century, "The Rosary." The Nevin collection used to reside at the University of Pittsburgh Theodore M. Finney Music Library but was transferred to the Center for American Music in 1996.

Charles Henry Pace Gospel Collection: Original printing plates, page proofs, and copies of sheet music are all that remain from Charles Henry's Pace's (1886-1963) Pittsburgh gospel music publishing house, Old Ship of zion Music Company. Pace also founded the Pace Jubilee Singers in 1925 and was a gospel composer best known for such songs as "Bread of Heaven," "Hide My Sould," and "Nobody but You, Lord."

Adolph M. Foerster Collection: some 400 items document the career and compositions of Adolph M. Foerster (1854-1927), once a prominent Pittsburgh composer and musician who also served as a director of the Pittsburgh symphony society, the precursor to the Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra. The collection consists of manuscripts and printed music, publication proofs, musician's fair copies, personal and business correspondence, programs, newspaper and magazine clippings, and photographs. The entire collection was digitized in 2003.

Charles Hamm Collection: The eminent scholar of American music (1925-2011) donated hundreds of LP recordings, books on American music, and rare materials on early 20th-century popular songs.

Robert Schmertz Collection: The Schmertz family donated the music manuscripts, recordings, instruments, and books of Pittsburgh architect and folk musician Robert W. Schmertz (1898-1975). His songs were performed and recorded by Burl Ives, pete Seeger, Tennessee Ernie Ford -- particularly the songs "Noah Found Grace in the Eyes of the Lord, "The Locktender's Lament," "Queen Anne Front," and "Oh Lord I've Got Some Singing to Do."

Joe Negri Collection: In addition to being an accomplished Jazz guitarist, Joe Negri is known to generations of children through his regular role on the television program "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood." Negri placed his entire music archive with the center -- more than 2,100 items, featuring his original music compositions and his radio and TV jingles, along with sound recordings of Negri and others performing his songs; scripts and lyrics; published songbooks from a variety of composers; film scores he composed for WQED-TV, and various private firms; and assorted programs and proposals for American Music concerts.

John and Susan Harvith collection: John Harvith and Susan Edwards Harvith wrote the book Edison, Musicans, and the Phonograph: A Century in Retrospect. They have donated hundreds of significant early classical 78 rpm reocrdings, as well as many books, mus9ic scores, and manuscripts.

Rosemary Casey Collection: Rosemary Casey worked for the RCA-Victor recording company in Camden, NJ, and accumulated hundreds of pristine classical 78 rpm discs pressed prior to and immediately following World War II. She authored many of the albums' liner notes and produced a guide to the company's recordings During her distinguished career, she met and interviewed some of the most significant classical musicians and operatic vocalists of the era.

Howard Boatwright Collection: helen Boatwright, the composer's wido and a renowned roprano, donated hundreds of boosk on music, theory, history, and biography, along with music scores and manuscripts -- many of which were signed by the authors and dedicated to Boatwright. A versatile and creative musician, Boatwright (1918-199) was a violist, musicologist, and composer known in particular for his choral music. His scholarly research and writings covered an unusually wide range of topics.