Scott Joplin, who was dubbed "The King of Ragtime Writers" early in his composing career, earned the title through diligence, innovation, and sheer talent. Although he was not entirely responsible for helping lower many of the barriers that stood between black composers and success, Joplin was a leader in this regard, if a passive one.
     Scott was born in eastern Texas near Linden. The true birth date is unknown, and the common one of November 24 1868 was suggested by his last wife Lottie, although it was likely between July 19. 1867 (the day after the 1870 Census listing him as 2 years old) and mid-January of 1868 according to historian and Joplin biographer Ed Berlin. The June 1880 Census lists him as 12 years old, further reinforcing this probability, and the 1900 Census lists him with an October birth date, although in 1872, a curiosity for certain.
     The future composer grew up in the uncertain era of reconstruction. His father, Giles Joplin (sometimes spelled Jiles), was a slave that was freed before the Civil War, and his mother, Florence, was freeborn. During Scott's first few years, his parents worked as tenant farmers. As the family grew, his father got a job with the railroad in Texarkana, and his mother took up house cleaning.Both parents were musical, and Scott learned to play the banjo at an early age. His obvious musical talent earned him offers from area piano teachers to tutor him for free. One in particular, Mr. Julius Weiss, gave Scott a solid foundation of not only piano performance but an appreciation for classical music forms.
     By the age of 12 he was competent at both interpreting and writing music. His father left home around that time to take up residence with another woman, but stayed minimally involved to some extent in Scott's life. He appears in the 1880 Census still with the family as a common laborer so he may have left within the year. The same record shows Florence and oldest son Monroe working as well, with Scott and Robert in school. The youngest Joplin, Johnny, was only 3 months old when the Census was taken in mid June. Scott helped his mother raise his siblings, but always followed his passion for music. There are suggestions by Ed Berlin that during his mid to late teens he spent some time in Sedalia, likely with a relative, but came back at some point to Texarkana. Around age 19 or 20 he left home for good.
     Scott spent the next few years as an itinerant pianist, developing his own style while absorbing influences of other Midwest musicians. He spent a great deal of time based in St. Louis, and went to the Chicago World's Columbian Exposition (World's Fair) in 1893. It was here that ragtime music, then in its infancy, was most likely heard by the public, and by many other musicians as well for the first time. While it is very unlikely it was played at one of the exhibision's main musical venues, there were certainly a number of establishments just outside the fairgrounds with pianos and willing performers. There is no confirmation that Joplin performed ragtime at the event, or even that he knew any; simply that he was most likely exposed to it there to some degree.
     After the fair, Scott formed various bands and singing groups, including the Texas Medley Quartette which featured his two of his younger brothers, Robert and Will. From 1894 to at least 1896 they toured part of the eastern half of the United States. During his travels, Joplin managed to get two of his earliest pieces published, including a maudlin song named Please Say You Will. His first instrumental works included two typical waltzes of the period, and one ambitious march. A descriptive piece in a style that would soon be the domain of composer E.T. Paull, The Great Crush Collision was intended to emulate a leisurely afternoon journey ending in a horrific train wreck. In reality, it was composed to commemorate a wreck staged by William George Crush of the Missouri-Kansas-Texas (Katy) railroad line in Texas on September 15, 1896. The march was published soon afterwards in Temple, Texas.
     After spending a little more time based in St. Louis, Joplin settled for a time in Sedalia, Missouri in 1897, a move that would change his life. Sedalia was a major railhead in western Missouri, and also the endpoint of a major cattle trail, so the town was usually full of visitors from all over. Already a published composer with five pieces to his credit, Scott attended the George R. Smith College (founded to encourage higher education for African Americans) to further his musical knowledge. It was possibly there that he learned how to more accurately notate syncopation, a necessity for correctly writing down his ragtime compositions for others to play. Joplin performed in many area venues during this time both as a solo performer and with varying sizes of groups playing either piano or cornet.
     His first rag publication came in early 1899. Scott had submitted a work to Kansas City, Missouri publisher Carl Hoffman. It was endorsed by Hoffman's young staff composer and whiz kid Charles N. Daniels, who received an "arranged by" credit on the cover. There is no clear evidence, based on Daniel's work or his later recollections, that he arranged anything more than to have it published. There have also been stories that Joplin submitted another fine rag to Daniels but that it was rejected as too dificult, but again such stories are hard to confirm, even if they are plausible. Scott's next move towards greatness was back in Sedalia. It was while working in one of the many drinking and gathering establishments in Sedalia in the summer o 1899, the short-lived (December 1898 to January 1900) Maple Leaf Club, that Scott allegedly became involved with one of his greatest champions, music store owner John Stark, and at the very least where he found the name for his first truly inspired rag.
     How he actually presented the piece to Stark has also become a point of legend. In any event, Stark, who had acquired some publications from another source and was considering putting out some of his own, was impressed enough by Joplin's Maple Leaf Rag that he quickly took it on, giving the composer a royalty (.01¢ per copy). This was very unusual at this time, more so since Joplin was a black composer working with a white publisher. Since it was likely a lawyer friend of Joplin's that helped make the contact with Stark and drew up the contract, it may have been a mutually agreed upon point that not only provided protection for both parties, but would eventually alter Joplin's financial well-being, allowing him to spend more time composing. Stark further encouraged Joplin to bring him more compositions, of which the collaborative Sunflower Slow Drag may have been submitted around the same time. The Maple Leaf Rag, published in Sedalia but printed and distributed in St. Louis as well, was nearly an instant hit locally, and over the next two decades it reportedly became the first piano rag to sell a million copies, although when that mark was reached is unclear. Although the relationship between Stark and Joplin would often be strained over much of the next 18 years, the publisher always promoted Joplin's works as the finest in his catalog. Those periods of animosity between them are in part demonstrated by name of varying publishers whose imprints appear at the bottom of each new Joplin rag.
     Of some interest is the progression of Maple Leaf Rag editions that have been in more or less continuous print since 1899. The first, likely printed in St. Louis and distributed there and Sedalia, and places in between, featured a drawing based on a tobacco advertising sketch from the American Tobacco Company. The dancers depicted on the cover are none other than famous black vaudeville stars George Walker and Bert Williams and their wives dancing the cakewalk. After perhaps 1000 copies had been printed, the cover was changed to the common and more familiar Maple Leaf in 1900. The dedication remained even though the venue was closed by that time. The first of these editions had a picture of Joplin on the lower left side. Subsequent editions filled this area with a random pattern. It may be extrapolated that even though Stark did not outwardly demonstrate racism in his embracing of ragtime, some of his customers may have. Therefore, the removal of Joplin's picture identifying him as a black composer rather than suggest an anonymous one may have been simply a business decision. There would be virtually no other reason to change this plate unless the original lithograph was broken. That may have happened as a later time as in the 1920s and beyond there are a couple of mild variations of the leaf.
     In the 1900 Census Joplin is listed as a musician, with his birthday curiously put down as October of 1872, and his age as 27. He was lodging in the home of Susan H. Hankins, who was also hosting Belle Hayden Jones, the recently widowed sister-in-law of one of his young students, Scott Hayden. The only publication with Joplin's name on it was a collaboration with another student, a peer of Hayden's, Arthur Marshall. Swipesy Cake Walk was relatively advanced for that time, and more rag than cakewalk. It also helped solidify Joplin's name as a rag composer, and gave Marshall a foot in the door. Sunflower Slow Drag, composed with Hayden and possibly submitted even before Swipesy, was published in 1901. Just before he moved to St. Louis in 1901, Joplin (as some evidence suggests) possibly married Belle, and it may have also been a common-law marriage. The couple settled in St. Louis and Scott Hayden and Arthur Marshall soon followed them there for a while.
     The period of 1901 to 1902 was one of the first that found Joplin at odds with Stark. In late 1901 he had The Easy Winners published in St. Louis by Shattinger Music. Even though the title and the cover art represented sporting events and had the connotation of gambling, something that Stark did not endorse in his beliefs, the he eventually acquired the piece from Shattinger for subsequent editions. Their next flap was over the publication of an extended rag ballet intended for stage or social events, which had evidently been performed as early as 1900 in Sedalia. Stark grudgingly published this long version of The Ragtime Dance, which had been orchestrated and performed in St. Louis as well by this time, due largely to the prompting of his daughter Eleanor, but it did poorly as Stark expected. Still, with profits from the other rags in his catalog, John Stark was able to open a music store and publishing plant in St. Louis, and eventually an office in New York City.
     Among the standout pieces of 1902 was The Entertainer, which was dedicated to James Brown and his Mandolin Club. Such clubs were quite popular during the ragtime era. Another fine rag was The Strenuous Life, the title which came from a collection of essays published in 1900 by then-Vice President Theodore Roosevelt. Joplin held Roosevelt, who had sinced gained the presidency through the assaniation of William McKinley, in very high regard as would soon be demonstrated by his first major work.
     Joplin wrote an early ragtime opera finished in 1903 called A Guest of Honor (likely based on a formal visit to the Roosevelt White House by Booker T. Washington), and toured with it briefly in the late summer and fall of 1903. Although no score has been re-discovered, remnants potentially remain in the form of a rag and march, and some titles from are known at the very least, including Antoinette, a march published in 1906. There has been speculation that since the tour was having money troubles that the assets, including the score, were taken in Indianapolis, Indiana where the tour disbanded. To add to Joplin's troubles, there is a possibility that he and Belle had been at odds for some time in St. Louis. After they had a baby girl that died at two months, the couple became estranged. Belle later moved away from St. Louis and lived until 1930 or so, ending their relationship. Since no official divorce is on record for them, this further reinforces the notion of theirs being a common law marriage.
     At some point after the fiscally disasterous Guest of Honor tour, Joplin spent up to a few months in Chicago before returning to St. Louis. By the time the 1904 Lewis and Clark Exposition and World's Fair opened there in late April, he was probably back in Sedalia where he spent some time. Joplin was given an opportunity to play at the exposition, but his presence was overshadowed by many larger groups, including the legendary band of John Philip Sousa. He was one of many composers who wrote a work specifically for the exposition, giving the world The Cascades, a musical celebration of the waterfalls that extended out behind the Hall of Music on the fairgrounds. This piece, Tom Turpin's St. Louis Rag, and the extremely catchy Meet Me In St. Louis by composer Frederick Allen Mills are the three pieces from that event that have endured the longest.
     During this period (perhaps even before) Scott met a 19 year-old in Little Rock, Arkansas that had captured his heart. He subsequently married Freddie Alexander, who he had dedicated the first printing of the Chrysanthemum to, in late June, and traveled with her back to Sedalia, playing concerts along the way. However, as soon as they reached Sedalia in July, Freddie took ill and was confined to bed for a cold that developed into pneumonia. The illness took her life in early September. This started a period of compositional malaise and possibly depression for the composer, who soon moved back to St. Louis. Subsequent printings of Chrysanthemum also had the dedication removed. By this time, John Stark had set up shop in New York in an effort to compete with larger publishers who were putting out ragtime inferior (his staunch belief) to what was in his catalog. Joplin eventually followed Stark to New York in 1907, never to return to the Midwest.
     Some of Joplin's best-developed works are from the period 1907 to 1910, and they demonstrate the versatility of classic ragtime as well as a variety of textures that could be achieved within that framework. It was during this time that he met and allegedly married Lottie Stokes, although even approximate dates for this are unclear. He appears in the April 1910 Census as a musician and composer in Manhattan, plus widowed as would be consistent with the loss of Freddie. The wedding date of June of that year, as reported by Brun Campbell, would be most consistent with the time line, but inconsistent with other factors, such as her using her maiden name on a legal document in 1913. They were possibly never formally married, but she does appear as Lottie Joplin starting with the 1920 Census. There is some possibility that Lottie, born and raised in Washington DC, was married before she moved to Manhattan to run her boarding house, which would explain why she is hard to locate before 1913 when the two were obviously in a close relationship.
     Joplin continued work on a project that had been in his mind for many years and would consume much of the rest of his life. He believed so much in his syncopated opera Treemonisha that he put everything he had into it, both emotionally and financially. Funding and support was hard to come by because so many investors were involved with Broadway shows offering more popular music, and those investing in opera were going for proven projects. Treemonisha, a story ahead of its time as it involves female leadership and has a strong message of education as a way to gain respect and equal rights among all men, ultimately had only one performance for potential investors in 1911 with Joplin playing in place of an orchestra and a bare stage set. (Treemonisha was successfully staged for the first time as originally intended in 1972 with a full scale re-orchestrated presentation in 1975 by the Houston Grand Opera).
     Emotionally discouraged and mentally affected by the onset of syphilis, Joplin spent his remaining years, particularly 1915 on, slowly deteriorating physically and suffering from the onset of dementia. In early 1916 he did manage at least two different sessions where he recorded a handful of piano rolls, including Maple Leaf Rag, W.C. Handy's Ole Miss Rag, and his waltz Pleasant Moments. All but one of these are not accurate indicators of how he would have been playing at that time since they were obviously edited for timing and other errors. The exception is one of his Maple Leaf Rag performances which is uneven and halting at times, but it may have also been edited to some extent. Without an audio recording it is hard to determine exactly how he played, and between even 1914 and 1916 there would have been some significant differences. Joplin finally succumbed to the disease on April 1, 1917, six weeks after having been committed to Bellevue Hospital. Lottie Joplin long regretted not fulfilling her husband's insistent request that the Maple Leaf Rag be played at his funeral. Nonetheless, his music remains an inherent part of American music history, and his contributions to not just Black Americans but to all Americans are long lasting.
     As for what happened to some of Joplin's remaining papers and works, including some unpublished manuscripts, has also long been somewhat of a mystery. This includes the status of A Guest of Honor, but also some unfinished rags or songs. It is reported that historian Rudi Blesh saw some of them when visiting Lottie during his interviews in 1949 for They All Played Ragtime, and he jotted down some of the titles, many shown in the listings included here. The status of that box of papers since then is unknown, but speculations vary from being stolen to being accidentally left out in the trash to simply having been acquired by a new building owner who may have disposed of them not knowing what was there. The most significant discovery after his death was of Silver Swan Rag, which existed only in piano roll form. The initial copy found in the late 1960s was not properly credited, but once the news was out that it may be a Joplin roll, other copies surfaced with the proper attribution. New information does pop up from time to time, but the bulk of what we know about Joplin's life has likely been found by now, one of the best collections being detailed in King of Ragtime by Dr. Edward Berlin. But many discoveries remain for future generations, perhaps in new ways to interpret his pieces, and perhaps other writings that have not yet surfaced.