Stephen Foster was first erected in 1900 in the city's
Highland Park, where Moretti had recently completed grand neoclassical gates for the park's main entrance. An economic depression in the 1890s, however, caused the
Pittsburgh Press to head a subscription drive to garner funds for the piece. Nearly 50,000 Pittsburghers lined the parade route for the statue's dedication.
Victor Herbert, the
Pittsburgh Symphony Orchestra's new music director, led 3,000 school children in the singing of Foster tunes. At the ceremony Stephen Foster's daughter
Marion Foster Welch unveiled the statue and nieces of
U.S. President James Buchanan laid a wreath at its base. The actual design of the statue was by committee.
Andrew W. Mellon the banker,
Edward Manning Bigelow the parks director,
Robert Pitcairn the
Pennsylvania Railroad mogul, as well as the director of the
Carnegie Museum of Art, among others, all met to brainstorm scenarios for the artwork. The current design was suggested by committee member T.J. Keenan Jr., editor of the
Pittsburgh Press, and embraced by Moretti, according to the paper. It is intended to commemorate the song "Uncle Ned," and shows Ned, a slave, with Foster. Stephen Foster's brother Morrison Foster sat as a model in Moretti's New York studio. Decades later during the
Great Depression the sculpture was repeatedly vandalized; the banjo and Foster's pencil were broken off and sold, presumably, as scrap metal. Eventually Pittsburgh mayor
Cornelius D. Scully requested the statue be moved to a more visible, safer place. During
World War II it was moved to
Oakland's Schenley Plaza, along busy Forbes Avenue and across the street from
Stephen Foster Memorial. It was rededicated on June 29, 1944. ==Controversy==