Fletcher Hodges Jr.
| Fletcher Hodges Jr. | |
|---|---|
| Born | August 6, 1905 |
| Died | March 13, 2006 (aged 100) |
| Alma mater | Harvard University |
| Spouse(s) | Margaret Hodges |
Fletcher Hodges Jr. (August 6, 1905 – March 13, 2006) was an American who curated the Foster Hall Collection, a collection of documents and music related to Stephen Foster at the University of Pittsburgh, for fifty-one years.
"One of the chief activities of Foster Hall has been the publication of Songs of Stephen Foster, a collection of the composer's best works, arranged for schools and general use. During the past nineteen years, approximately a million copies of these song books have been presented to schools, libraries, churches, musical organizations, and the armed forces, in all parts of the United States and of the world."
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.
Hodges' wife, Margaret Hodges, was a Caldecott Medal winning writer of books for children. She preceded him in death in December 2005.
After contraction of pneumonia, Hodges Jr. died on March 13, 2006, at a retirement home in Oakmont, Pennsylvania.
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