SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH - PHOTOGRAPH MOUNT SIGNED - HFSID 274862
Price: $4,000.00
SAMUEL FRANCIS SMITH
Signed sepia-toned cabinet card photo of Samuel Francis Smith, the man who wrote the
hymn America
Photograph Mount signed: "S. Fr. Smith." B/w sepia-toned, 4¼x6 overall, image 4x5¼ (two
surfaces). After a visit to Germany in 1831, 23-year-old theological student Samuel
Francis Smith (1808-1895), impressed that German children started their school day by
singing a hymn, wrote a patriotic hymn using a simple German melody. Coincidentally,
the melody was the same as that of the British national anthem, "God Save the King". Smith
jotted down the complete hymn on a piece of scrap paper within half an hour, and the
result, "America", was first sung at a children's celebration in Boston's Park Street
Church on July 4, 1832. George Gershwin used Smith's phrase "Of Thee I Sing" as the title of
his 1932 Pulitzer Prize-winning musical, and the Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. quoted
the entire first stanza as he concluded his "I have a dream" speech in front of the Lincoln
Memorial in 1963. Stray ink smudge on mount above signature. Slightly soiled at upper left and
right edges of mount. Otherwise, fine condition.
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