Stephen Foster (49)

Stephen Foster
1826-1864
America's first professional songwriter
Cause of Death: Impoverishment

Tarnished Star: The 19th century's most famous tunesmith had no copyright protection, and so made no bank. The composer of "Camptown Races" and "Oh! Susanna" died after a feverish collapse in a cheap New York hotel. His fortune was the 38 cents in his pocket.
Two-Faced: Pennsylvania native Foster wrote about the South but rarely left the North. He was white, but used the now-horrifying slang of blackface minstrelsy. None of this helped his post-civil-rights-era rep. In 1996 the only two African-American members of the Yale Glee Club protested three Foster songs slated for a public performance; two were cut and the Glee Club president publicly burned a copy of the music.
Salvage Job: Foster's status began changing around the time documentarian Ken Burns made the Civil War hip again. Ken Emerson's 1997 biography, the first in 60 years, contextualized Foster's functional racism; a PBS doc and a tribute album followed. Americana lovers from Dylan on down revived Foster's songs; twinkle-toed choreographer Mark Morris wrote a dance using them. Foster's still not quite the bomb, but his phantom's on the mend.