A Publication History of Stephen Foster's "Massa's in de Cold Ground"

Abstract

On folios 17v and 18r of his manuscript book-a book usually reserved for reworking words of songs-Stephen Foster scrawled two musical sketches for Massa's in de cold ground (Plate 1).1 Foster could scarcely have foreseen the extraordinary popularity that the song would enjoy. In 1854, less than two-and-a-half years after it was entered for copyright, Firth, Pond & Company claimed to have printed and sold more than 74,000 copies.2 After the dissolution of Firth, Pond & Company, the Oliver Ditson Company acquired the rights to Massa's in de cold ground and issued the song numerous times as a songsheet and in anthologies. In the late nineteenth and early twentieth century the song appeared in dozens of guises: it was included in songbooks and picturebooks; there were arrangements and variations for instruments ranging from banjo to Hawaiian guitar; the melody of Massa's in de cold ground was even used as a hymn tune.3 This study reconstructs a portion of the publication history of Massa's in de cold ground, tracing Foster's two arrangements of the song (one for voice and piano, the other for voice with guitar accompaniment) from his sketches through to the end of the nineteenth century, relying primarily on techniques of textual criticism. The focus of most musical text-criticism is elimination-editors usually compare variants between sources in order to identify those closest to the composer's autograph, and to eliminate those with little claim to authorial authority. It is possible, though, to follow this text-critical path in the opposite direction: away from the composer and into the marketplace. The changes which Massa's in de cold ground underwent in the course of nineteenth-century reissues, reimpressions, and arrangements illumi-