George Frederick Root
Early life
George Frederick Root (30 August, 1820 – 6 August, 1895) was a popular American songwriter during the American Civil War and the author of the very popular song in 1862 entitled The Battle Cry of Freedom.
He was born at Sheffield, Massachusetts. As a young boy growing up in Boston, Root was trained on the piano by George J. Webb. In 1845, he moved to New York City, where he played the organ at the Church of the Strangers and taught music at the Abbott Institute for Young Ladies. That same year he met and married Mary Olive Woodman and the couple had six children.
As a respected musician, Root toured Europe in 1850. Returning to the US, he began assisting Lowell Mason at Boston’s Academy of Music. Root began working as a songwriter for minstrel songs in 1851 under the pseudonym "G. Friedrich Wurzel" (a German word meaning "Root"). His first successful composition came in 1853 while working with Fanny Crosby, an American lyricist and hymnist, with The Hazel Dell. Then in 1855 another success came for the both of them when Rosalie, The Prairie Flower was published.
From 1853-58, Root lived in New York collaborating with other songwriters such as Mary S. B. Dana (Free As a Bird), Fanny Crosby (There’s Music in the Air) and Rev. David Nelson (The Shining Shore). In 1859, he moved the family to Chicago to join his older brothers' publishing company, Root & Cady.
Influenced by the Civil War, Root’s music shifted from popular standards to war songs. In 1862 the anthem of the Civil War, The Battle Cry of Freedom was published. In 1863, he composed The First Gun is Fired. Other songs composed during this time include: Just before the Battle, Mother, Just After the Battle, Tramp, Tramp, Tramp, On, On, On the Boys Came Marching and The Vacant Chair.
Root continued working for Root & Cady after the war and in 1872, the University of Chicago awarded him the honorary degree of Doctor of Music. In his later life, he was instrumental in founding the New York Normal Institute dedicated to the training of music instructors.
Root died on August 6, 1895, at his summer home in Bailey Island, Maine, age 74. His greatest composition “The Battle Cry of Freedom” continues to inspire American patriots and has been acknowledged as one of the most great freedom songs of all time.
Root was inducted into the Songwriters' Hall of Fame in 1970.
External link
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Wood, James, ed. (1907). The Nuttall Encyclopædia. London and New York: Frederick Warne. {{cite encyclopedia}}: Missing or empty |title= (help)