Septimus Winner papers

Table of Contents

Summary Information

Background note

Scope and content note

Administrative Information

Related Materials

Controlled Access Headings

Collection Inventory

Summary Information

Repository

Historical Society of Pennsylvania

Creator

Winner, Septimus, 1827-1902

Title

Septimus Winner papers

ID

1536

Date [bulk]

Bulk, 1845-1902

Date [inclusive]

1845-1965

Extent

1.5 Linear feet ; 3 boxes, 1 volume

Author

Finding aid prepared by Annie Halliday and Jack McCarthy.

Language

English

Abstract

Septimus Winner (1827-1902) was a successful songwriter and music businessman in mid- to late-nineteenth century Philadelphia. He is best known for writing the song "Listen to the Mockingbird." In addition to songwriting, Winner operated music stores and music publishing businesses, taught lessons, wrote music instruction books and musical arrangements, and performed in various local ensembles. The Septimus Winner papers consist primarily of Winner's diaries from 1845-1902, along with a volume of published sheet music of his songs, two catalogs of his music publications, notebooks of his training in music theory, notebooks of his poetry and various writings, lecture notes from the Central High School of Philadelphia, and correspondence and miscellaneous papers.

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Background note

Septimus Winner (May 11, 1827-November 22, 1902) was a successful songwriter and music businessman in mid- to late-nineteenth century Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is best known for writing the song "Listen to the Mockingbird." Winner wrote under various aliases, most notably "Alice Hawthorne," a pen name derived from the maiden name of his mother, Mary Ann Hawthorne Winner, who was a relative of the writer Nathaniel Hawthorne. He also wrote under the aliases Mark Mason, Percy Guyer, and Paul Stenton.

In addition to song writing, Winner's musical activities included operating music stores and running music publishing businesses, teaching lessons, writing music instruction books and musical arrangements, and performing in various local ensembles. The latter included the orchestras of the Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia and Cecilian Music Society and the Philadelphia Brass Band. His music stores were in various locations on East Spring Garden Street in the mid to late nineteenth century, as well as on North 8th Street and on Columbia Avenue in North Philadelphia. He also had an office on Sansom Street in the 1870s. His homes were on North 8th and North 16th Streets in North Philadelphia, and he lived for a time, circa 1880, on Fisher's Lane in Germantown.

The son of a musical instrument maker, Winner attended the Central High School of Philadelphia in the 1840s. He was largely a self-taught musician, but in early 1853 at the age of twenty-six, Winner studied music theory for several months with Leopold Meignen (1793-1873), a French-born immigrant who was a well-known composer, conductor, and music publisher in Philadelphia in the nineteenth century.

Winner opened a music store in Philadelphia at age twenty and began writing songs around that time. He first achieved some commercial success in 1854 with the song "What is Home without a Mother." In 1855 he wrote "Listen to the Mocking Bird," which became enormously popular, eventually selling over 20 million copies of sheet music by the early twentieth century. Soon after his publishing firm Winner & Shuster first published the song, however, Winner reportedly sold its publishing rights to another Philadelphia publisher, Lee & Walker, for only five dollars, thus losing out on its huge profits.

Winner wrote "Listen to the Mocking Bird" using a tune he had heard an African American street musician whistle. Richard Milburn, known as "Whistling Dick," played guitar and whistled on Philadelphia streets for money. One of his entertainments was to imitate a mockingbird by whistling a particular melody. Winner took this melody and wrote lyrics to it. The first publication of the sheet music by Winner & Shuster list the songwriting credit as "Melody by Richard Milburn...Written and arranged by Alice Hawthorne." Later editions by other publishers omit Milburn and give the credit solely to Hawthorne. Another enduring popular song Winner wrote to an existing melody was "Oh Where, Oh Where Has My Little Dog Gone," which in the early 1860s he set to the German folk-song melody "Lauterbach."

In 1862, during the American Civil War, Winner wrote and published "Give Us Back Our Old Commander: Little Mac, the People's Pride," a song that advocated for the return to service of popular Union General George McClellan, who had been relieved of his command of the Army of the Potomac by President Abraham Lincoln. The song sold eighty thousand copies within a few days, but was branded anti-Union by the US government, leading to Winner being court-martialed and jailed briefly on a charge of treason. The charge was dropped after Winner agreed to destroy all remaining copies of the song. The song was revived a few years later when McClellan ran for US President and again in 1880, with new words, when Ulysses S. Grant ran for a third term as President.

Winner was a prolific composer and arranger. In addition to writing numerous popular songs, he wrote more than 1,500 easy arrangements for various instruments and almost 2,000 arrangements for violin and piano. He also produced more than 200 instruction method books for more than twenty-three instruments, many of which were published under the title Septimus Winner's Methods.

Winner owned music publishing companies throughout his adult life. From circa 1845 to 1854 he had a music publishing business with his brother Joseph Eastburn Winner, writer of the song "Little Brown Jug." Later, he partnered with William H. Shuster as Winner & Shuster from 1853 to 1856, with M. A. Smith as Winner & Co. in 1863, with James F. Ferguson as Sep. Winner & Co. in 1866 to 1867, and with his son J. Gibson Winner as Sep. Winner & Son from 1873 to 1897. His publishing companies issued both his songs and arrangements and his music instruction books.

Winner also wrote poetry and was a frequent contributor to Graham's Magazine, which was edited at the time by Edgar Allen Poe. Winner's book of poetry titled  Cogitations of a Crank at Three Score Years and Ten, was published posthumously in 1903. Biographical information and excerpts from his diaries were published in 1937 in the book  The Mocking Bird: The Life and Diary of Its Author, Septimus Winner, written by Winner's great grandson Charles Eugene Claghorn.

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Scope and content note

The Septimus Winner Papers consist primarily of 44 volumes of Winner’s personal diaries dating from 1845-1902 (with gaps). Also included are a bound volume of his songs in published sheet music form from 1853-1858; two catalogs of his music publications, 1853 and 1894; two notebooks from his training in music theory, 1853; a notebook of Central High School lectures, 1843; small volumes of his writings and poetry, 1840s-early 1860s; correspondence with his family, 1840s-1850s and 1870s-1902; and miscellaneous papers, including an 1855 handwritten manuscript of the lyrics to “Listen to the Mockingbird”, two 1945 letters about Winner written to his great grandson, and a 1965 newspaper article about Winner.

The majority of the collection is comprised of Winner's diaries, a total of 44 small volumes of daily journals dating from 1845 to 1902 (with gaps), starting when Winner was eighteen and continuing until his death at the age of seventy-five. The diaries are in the form of printed yearly diary books: small volumes for each year, with blank pages marked for entries for each day of the year. The diaries range in size from very small pocket volumes to small copy books. There are some years for which there are no volumes, including 1846, 1854, 1864-1867, 1875-1876, 1878-1879, and 1885-1892. Additionally, there are some volumes which contain very few entries. For the most part, however, Winner was consistent in making daily entries over the years, even if many of the entries are very brief. In the entries, Winner most often notes weather conditions, but also mentions family matters, daily activities, his music business matters, and occasionally current events. Music-related activities he describes include giving lessons, running his music stores, purchasing and selling instruments, engraving music for publication, his music sales, his playing engagements, and going to the theater. Among the personal matters mentioned are the births (and later, deaths) of his children as well as his father's alcoholism. Many of the diaries give the addresses of his music stores, publishing houses, and private homes in Philadelphia.

There is also a leather-bound volume labeled “Hannah J. Winner,” consisting of the original sheet music to several of Winner’s songs published from 1853-1858. It contains 33 scores written by Winner with many including dedications to people in his life including his wife, neighbors, music teachers, music publishers, and composers. There are also two catalogs of music publications in the collection: Winner's Collection of Music for the Violin (1853) and Winner's Select Catalog of Music for Piano or Organ (1894).

There are four notebooks in the collection. The earliest notebook is entitled "Lectures by Dr. McMurtrie at the Central High School of Philadelphia September 1, 1843" and contains 28 pages of lecture notes as well as 20-some pages of 1840s-1850s poetry and other writings by Winner. The second notebook contains detailed notes on music theory taken by Winner during his weekly studies with Leopold Meignen from early January to early May 1853. Winner numbered the sixteen sessions consecutively and made notes on all but three of them. (Winner mentions the lessons in his diary from this time, noting in one entry his studies with Meignen in "the art and science of music" and in another describing the lessons as "the most amusing and interesting study on earth.") The third notebook is undated and contains additional notes by Winner on music theory and notated musical examples. The pages of this volume are comprised of lined pages for writing on the left side and ruled staffs for music notation on the right side. The back of the third notebook also has a short poem and notes for what is possibly a play. The fourth notebook is a small leather volume of poems, lyrics, some financial calculations, and other notes, dating from August 1860 to August 1861.

The correspondence in the collection consists of ten letters, 1845-1852, from Winner to his wife Hannah; seven letters, 1873-1902, from Winner to his wife Hannah and/or daughter Margaret (Maggie); and two letters from October 1945 to Winner's great grandson Charles Eugene Claghorn. One of the letters to Claghorn is from Harry Dichter, a Philadelphia-based collector of early American music who published various collections of early American music in the second half of the twentieth century. The second letter to Claghorn is a follow-up letter to Dichter's letter from Elliott Shapiro of New York City. Dichter and Shapiro co-wrote the book Early American Sheet Music. The letters pertain to researching Winner's songwriting and publishing as well as Claghorn's 1937 book,  The Mocking Bird: The Life and Diary of Its Author, Septimus Winner. Shapiro praises Winner for always giving credit to Richard Milburn for writing the melody to "Listen to the Mockingbird," and notes that it was only after the song was no longer published by Winner's publishing house that the Milburn credit was omitted.

Additional items in the collection include the original 1855 handwritten manuscript of the lyrics to "Listen to the Mockingbird" and a Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper article on Winner dated May 16, 1965. The article contains two photos.

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Administrative Information

Publication Information

 Historical Society of Pennsylvania ; 2017-2018.

Access restrictions

This collection is open for research.

Provenance

Gift of Charles Eugene and Donald Claghorn, 1946.

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Related Materials

Related materials

At the Historical Society of Pennsylvania:

The mocking bird, the life and diary of its author, Sep. Winner (1937) (call number UPA/Ph ML 410.W72 C5 1937).

At other institutions:

J. Gibson and Septimus Winner notebooks, Music Division, The New York Public Library

Separated materials

Photographs of Septimus Winner, 1854 and 1893, Society Portrait Collection

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Controlled Access Headings

Geographic Name(s)

• Germantown (Philadelphia, Pa.).

Occupation(s)

• Music teachers--Pennsylvania.

Personal Name(s)

• Claghorn, Charles Eugene, 1911-2005
• Meignen, Leopold, 1793-1873
• Milburn, Richard
• Winner, Septimus, 1827-1902

Subject(s)

• Diaries--19th century.
• Music--Ballads
• Music--Composers
• Music--Manuscripts--19th century.
• Musical Fund Society of Philadelphia.
• Sheet music--United States--History--19th century.
• Weather--Personal accounts

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Collection Inventory