Fletcher Hodges Jr.

Fletcher Hodges, Jr. (August 6, 1905 – March 13, 2006) was a leading American expert on the music of Stephen Collins Foster, who was known as the "father of American music."

Hodges, an Indiana native, graduated from Harvard University. He was hired during the Great Depression by Josiah K. Lilly, Sr., owner of the Eli Lilly and Company pharmaceutical corporation, to organize the Lilly family's archive of Foster materials, which then numbered 20,000 items. Lilly was a friend of University of Pittsburgh Chancellor John Gabbert Bowman, and he later donated the archive in 1937 to Bowman's newly constructed Stephen Foster Memorial on the Pitt campus. Hodges moved from Indianapolis to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania with the collection. What began for Hodges as a three-month assignment for Lilly endured as a 51-year curatorship of the Foster collection.

Personal life

Hodges' wife, Margaret Hodges, was a Caldecott Medal winning writer of books for children. She preceded him in death in December 2005.

He died from pneumonia in March 2006, at a retirement home in Oakmont, Pennsylvania.

Bibliography

Books

• Stephen Foster: America's Troubadour (co-written with John Tasker Howard), New York — Thomas Y. Crowell Company, 1934.
• A Pittsburgh Composer and his Memorial. Pittsburgh — Historical Society of Western Pennsylvania, 1938?
• Stephen Foster, Democrat. Pittsburgh — University of Pittsburgh, 1945.
• The Research Work of the Foster Hall Collection. Philadelphia — Pennsylvania Historical Association, 1948.
• Stephen Foster. An address by Mr. Fletcher Hodges, Jr., given at the 1949 Annual Meeting of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio. Cincinnati — Printed and bound by the C.J. Krehbiel Co., 1950.
• Swanee River and a Biographical Sketch of Stephen Collins Foster, White Springs, Florida. — Stephen Foster Memorial Association, 1958.

References

• Hoover, Bob (2006). Pittsburgh Post-Gazette: Obituary of Fletcher Hodges Jr. Retrieved March 14, 2006.