Henry Clay Work (October 1, 1832, Middletown, Connecticut – June 8, 1884, Hartford, Connecticut) was an American songwriter and composer. He is best remembered for his musical contributions to the Union in the Civil War: songs documenting the afflictions of slavery, the hardships of army life, and Northern triumphs in the conflict. Besides patriotic pieces, he wrote sentimental ballads and songs supporting the growing temperance movement. Many of Work's compositions were performed at minstrel shows.
Work's father, Alanson, was an abolitionist who strove to free fugitive slaves. While a youth, Henry initiated a career in printing, one that lasted his entire life. Although lacking formal music training, his penchant for song showed itself clearly as he wrote poems for newspapers and set them to music. Work first published a complete musical piece in 1853, and his career came of age at the Civil War's outbreak. Work collaborated with the Chicagoan publishing firm Root & Cady to compose twenty-seven Unionist tunes, some of which, such as "Kingdom Coming" (1862) and "Marching Through Georgia" (1865), were among the most popular of the war.
After the war, Work ventured in often somber balladry, but familial and financial woes and Root & Cady's closure would drain his motivation. He quit songwriting altogether for a few years. After deciding to work with Chauncey M. Cady in 1876, his output briefly resurged; this yielded a single major hit, "Grandfather's Clock" (1876), the best-selling song of his career and possibly the best-known American song of the decade. Nonetheless, Work could not resurrect his wartime fame and fortune, and he died nearly forgotten at age 51.
Work was one of the most successful American musicians of the 1860s and 1870s. Sometimes crowned the bard of Union song alongside George F. Root, he expressed deftness in African-American dialect, comedy, melody, and social consciousness. His work built on the popular verse-chorus form, and the music historian Kent A. Bowman argues that his minstrel pieces written in dialect, along with those of other writers, influenced ragtime and jazz.
Life and career
Upbringing and youth Henry Clay Work, named for the statesman and former House speaker Henry Clay, was born on October 1, 1832, in Middletown, Connecticut.named for: ; birth date and place: ; ; The Work family was of Scottish origin; their surname derived from Auld Wark, an important stronghold during the Anglo-Scottish wars. To evade religious persecution, some of the family migrated to the north of Ireland. Joseph Work moved to the United States soon after, in 1720, and settled in Ashford, Connecticut.; All the family patriarchs descended from him, at least until Henry, were born in Connecticut.
Henry grew up poor and had little formal education.poor: ; education: ; When he was three, his father Alanson shifted the family near Quincy, Illinois, in hopes of finding better fortune.; Alanson was an antislavery advocate who fashioned the family home into a station of the Underground Railroad, a network for fugitive slaves to escape to freedom.; ; ; He helped thousands of slaves flee from bondage,; ; ; and for this, the authorities sentenced him to twelve years' hard labor in Missouri in 1841. He received a conditional pardon four years later, whereby he had to return to Connecticut and forsake the Railroad. Having spent plenty of time with the freed slaves, the efforts of Henry's father left a stirring impression on him. He became familiar with the African-American dialect and minstrelsy and came to terms with slaves' routine agonies; such experiences sowed in him his father's staunch abolitionism that would come to suffuse many of his songs.; ; ;
While in Illinois, he irregularly attended Latin and Greek courses at Mission Institute.; These bred his interest in philology. In music, Work was largely self-taught, save for some lessons at a church singing school and exposure to camp meetings in his neighborhood.; ; He quickly grew acquainted with the laws of musical notation and conceived original melodies while laboring at the family pasture. For a time, he heartedly sang hymns during Mass but quit after being told his voice was not fit for singing.
Obliged by the terms of Alanson's release from prison, the Work family migrated back to Middletown in 1845, but Henry stayed a year longer. Aged fourteen, he reluctantly began his apprenticeship as a tailor at his parents' insistence. However, his father soon allowed him to pursue a career that better suited his tastes: printing, especially typesetting music.; ; Typesetting granted Work further knowledge of the English language, which, according to the writer George Birdseye, would prove necessary for his future songwriting practice. He never abandoned his trade from then on.; Outside work, writing and music occupied him most; he would pen poems, equip them with melodies, and contribute them to various newspapers in his spare time.; ;
Early musical efforts (1853–1860) In 1853, Work composed his first song with original lyrics and melody, "We Are Coming, Sister Mary". Instead of submitting it to the poetry section of a gazette, he sent it to Edwin P. Christy, founder of the New York minstrel troupe that had launched Stephen Foster's career.; Christy was content and decided to perform it at his shows, where it met respectable praise. He later sold it to the local publishing firm Firth, Pond & Co. for $25; he bestowed them on Work. This sum, very generous in those days, thrust Work toward more ambitious songwriting efforts. He published a comic song, "Lilly-Wily Woken", under William Hall & Son two years later.
While his career in music had been moderately fruitful so far, Work started doubting his ability. He passed the rest of the decade without publishing any songs, choosing to focus solely on printing.; For this reason, he migrated to Chicago in 1855, aged twenty-three, and took up a new printing job.; ; He married Sarah Parker two years later and bought a cottage at Hyde Park.; However, in March 1861, his enthusiasm for songwriting revived; Work published a song commemorating the steamer Lady Elgin'''s shipwreck, "Lost on the Lady Elgin", earning little success.;
Civil War (1861–1865)
The following month, the American Civil War broke out. After the bombardment of Fort Sumter on April 12 and 13, President Abraham Lincoln called for seventy-five thousand volunteers to suppress the Southern rebellion. Music "aroused herself to meet the exigencies of the times", as a contemporary newspaper declared, and raised the Union's spirits by rallying both black and white civilians round their nation's cause.; ; ; newspaper quote: The foremost site hosting music shifted from the theater to the home because families of soldiers needed an immediate, domestic medium to convey and understand their feelings sparked by war, hence the popularity of parlor music around this time. Being in such high demand, patriotic song submissions began pouring into local newspapers and music labels; approximately two thousand were published as sheet music in 1861 alone.; ; ; two thousand: But the Union still lacked much antislavery vigor.
Having just been remotivated to write music, Work was drawn to Root & Cady, the preeminent Northern publishing firm of the time operated by the songwriter George F. Root.; ; ; ; operated by Root: ; ; He partnered with the firm throughout the war and in subsequent years.; ; From 1861 to 1865, he penned twenty-seven patriotic pieces and published them for Root & Cady.; This period marked Work's songwriting efforts at their most fertile and palmy; Root & Cady's fortunes too crested during the war.; ; ; ; fertile: His songs generally reflect the Union's progress and civilian wartime struggles.; ; ; ; "Brave Boys Are They", a grim overview of army life, opened Work's wartime career, but it was not until March that his music started leaving an impression; conversely, the scholar Richard S. Hill indicates that "Brave Boys Are They" was a great success and pushed Work to "take his composing seriously" for the first time. That month, Root bought out another of his Unionist compositions, "Our Captain's Last Words". Root met him in person a short while after as Work presented the manuscript for a new song; his autobiography recounts the encounter:
However, it was "Brave Boys Are They", which Work gave to Root after "Kingdom Coming", that secured his contract with Root & Cady.; Root saw potential in Work's adeptness at composing and, during a time that demanded thoroughly pro-Union patriotic songs, assigned him a songwriting post lasting until the Civil War's end.saw potential: ; demanded songs: ; assigned post: ; ; The music historian David Ewen deems "Kingdom Coming" "the first of his important songs"; and it became a wartime favorite of African-American troops. A gutless, hypocritical slave owner, fearing capture by incoming Union military forces, escapes his plantation, then taken over by his slaves who lock their overseer up as retribution for his cruelty.; ; It appealed to African-American Union troops who sang it regularly as they marched to the South.; ; First advertised by Christy in April 1862, "Kingdom Coming" quickly became a linchpin of minstrel show repertoires.; ; Root could not keep up with orders for the song, claiming it to be his firm's most profitable composition for almost one and a half years. Up until the nineteenth century's close, it was reportedly as popular as "Dixie". While Work generally supported President Lincoln's handling of the war, he spoofed a provision of the Enrollment Act whereby citizens could pay $300 and dodge service, in his 1862 comic song "Grafted into the Army". It is narrated by a widowed mother whose son was drafted into the Union army under the law; her speech and linguistic slips hint at their lowly social status.; ; ; ; handling of the war: ; lowly status: He conveyed fear about the Union's wartime progress against the Confederacy in "God Save the Nation" (1862/1863); Theodore Tilton wrote its words.; date, Tilton:
In 1863, Root began issuing a periodical, the Song Messenger, with Work as its editor. They agreed that Work would be "independent and untrammeled in the expression of his views on all subjects", but his conduct promptly sparked controversy. In a June article, he admonished compilers of church music books for altering traditional tunes and corrupting them, followed up by another in July declaring one of the changed hymns "hardly recognizable [and] mutilated". Many compilers saw these articles as defamatory and demanded an apology. While the periodical survived the dispute, Work's editing post did not; he was fired in August.
Three months earlier, he had published "Song of a Thousand Years" in response to the Confederate Gettysberg campaign.; date: He issued a sequel of "Kingdom Coming" in July 1863 titled "Babylon is Fallen".; ; ; Also written in vernacular, "Babylon is Fallen" aroused African Americans recruited for the Union army; their numbers had grown since the Emancipation Proclamation's passage. Another favorite among abolitionists and soldiers, it sold more first-month copies than its prequel.; ; numbers had grown: In 1864, Work published "Wake Nicodemus", a minstrel show hit, and "Corporal Schnapps", a tragic yet humorous lament noted for its employment of German dialect; the Chicago Tribune said upon its release that it enables "the difficult feat of laughing and crying at the same time"."Wake Nicodemus": ; "Colonel Schnapps": ; ; ; date: