Part 1: Joplin's Life
- Davis McGhee
- Apr 1
- 3 min read
Updated: Apr 15
Scott Joplin was born in 1868 (or 1867, according to some sources) in Texarkana, Texas, to a former enslaved father and a freeborn mother (Berlin 23).
Scott Joplin’s lifelong relationship with music began in his childhood, where the piano became an early outlet for expression, largely encouraged by his mother, Florence Joplin.
A formerly enslaved woman, Florence valued education and creativity, and she recognized young Scott’s natural musical ability. In a household with few resources, she made it a priority to foster his talent, allowing him to practice on the pianos in the homes where she worked as a domestic. This nurturing foundation gave Joplin access to an instrument that would become central to his artistic identity.
Though formal education was limited for African Americans in post-Reconstruction Texas, Joplin’s path was shaped in a significant way by Julius Weiss, a German-born music teacher who took an interest in the promising boy.
Weiss introduced Joplin to the works of European composers such as Mozart, Beethoven, and Bach, and provided instruction in music theory, harmony, and composition—an education far beyond what was typical for Black children at the time (Blesh and Janis 52). This classical foundation would later inspire Joplin’s bold ambition to elevate African American musical traditions by integrating them with the structured forms and compositional sophistication of European concert music.
By the 1890s, Joplin had become a traveling musician, performing in a wide range of venues throughout the Southern and Midwestern United States. These included riverboats, dance halls, saloons, brothels, and social clubs—spaces where the earliest forms of ragtime were taking shape.
This itinerant lifestyle allowed Joplin to absorb regional styles and develop his own distinctive musical voice. He eventually settled in Sedalia, Missouri, a thriving town that was home to a diverse musical scene and one of the few Black colleges in the region—George R. Smith College for Negroes—where he enrolled to pursue formal studies in music (Berlin 58).
Sedalia marked a turning point in Joplin’s career. There, he composed Maple Leaf Rag, published in 1899, which became not only his most famous piece but also the most influential ragtime composition of its time.
The piece’s publication brought Joplin both fame and relative financial stability through royalties, and it solidified his reputation as the “King of Ragtime” (Schuller 167). Despite the genre’s popularity, Joplin viewed ragtime as more than just entertainment—he believed it had the potential to be a serious, enduring form of American music.
As his career progressed, Joplin continued to compose piano rags, waltzes, and other works, but he also pursued larger ambitions. He envisioned ragtime not just as a popular style but as a medium capable of telling complex, meaningful stories. This vision culminated in his opera Treemonisha (1911), a work that combined classical structure with African American folk themes and addressed issues such as education, empowerment, and community uplift.
However, the opera received little support at the time and was never fully staged during his lifetime. Its lack of success deeply frustrated Joplin, who had poured his resources and hopes into the project.
Throughout his later years, Joplin faced persistent challenges. Racial barriers limited the reach of his more ambitious compositions, and financial instability haunted his efforts to promote his work on a larger scale.
He spent his final years in New York City, battling the effects of syphilis—a disease that progressively deteriorated his mental and physical health. He died in 1917 at the age of 48, his contributions largely unrecognized by the mainstream musical establishment (Jasen and Tichenor 201).