George Frederick Root

George Frederick Root was an American songwriter, who found particular fame during the American Civil War.

Root was born at Sheffield, Massachusetts, and was named after the Germanborn British composer George Frideric Handel. Root left his farming community for Boston at 18, flute in hand, intending to join an orchestra. He worked for a while as a church organist in Boston, and from 1845 taught music at the New York Institute for the Blind, where he met Fanny Crosby, with whom he would compose fifty to sixty popular secular songs. In 1850 he made a study tour of Europe, staying in Vienna, Paris, and London. He returned to teach music in Boston, Massachusetts as an associate of Lowell Mason, and later Bangor, Maine, where he was director of the Penobscot Musical Association and presided over their convention at Norumbega Hall in 1856. Root would spend most of his career traveling and teaching at Musical Institutes that move from town to town. He applied a version of Pestalozzis teaching and was instrumental in developing mid and late19th century American musical education. He was a followe

Source: Wikipedia