Samuel Barber (1910-1981)
West Chester, Chester County, Pennsylvania
Marker Inscription
Boyhood home of this composer of orchestral and vocal works, including the "Adagio for Strings" and "Knoxville: Summer of 1915." Won Pulitzer Prizes in music, 1958 & 1963. Graduate, Curtis Institute. He wrote West Chester High's Alma Mater song.
Erected by Pennsylvania Historical and Museum Commission
The Story
West Chester was the boyhood home of Samuel Barber, one of America's most beloved composers of the 20th century. A graduate of the Curtis Institute, he wrote music of lyric intensity, from the elegiac "Adagio for Strings" to the nostalgic "Knoxville: Summer of 1915," and twice won the Pulitzer Prize, in 1958 and 1963. So rooted was he in this town that he composed the alma mater for its high school.
Why it matters
Barber gave American concert music some of its most enduring and widely heard works, proving that a distinctly American voice could win the highest honors in classical composition.
Own a business near here? Add it to the map.
Related people
- · Samuel Barber
Themes & tags
Nearby & related markers
William Darlington
West Chester, PA · est. 1952
William Darlington began his 33-year tenure as president of the Bank of Chester County in this building in 1830, capping a life that ranged across medicine, politics, and science. A physician and former congressman, he is best remembered as one of early America's most respected botanists, cataloging the plants of the region and corresponding with naturalists across the country. He died in 1863, having helped make West Chester a small hub of scientific learning.
Joseph T. Rothrock
West Chester, PA · est. 1952
Joseph Trimble Rothrock lived in this West Chester house from 1876 until his death in 1922, during the decades when Pennsylvania's forests were being stripped bare by logging and fire. A physician turned botanist and reformer, he championed the idea that the state should own and manage forests as a public trust, and he became Pennsylvania's first forestry commissioner. His campaigns for fire control, reforestation, and scientific management laid the groundwork for the state forest system.
Fanny M. Jackson Coppin
Thornbury Township, PA · est. 1986
Born into slavery, Fanny Jackson Coppin bought her way toward freedom and learning, graduating from Oberlin College in 1865. For more than three decades she led the Institute for Colored Youth in Philadelphia, pioneering industrial arts and formal teacher training for Black students. The school she guided endured and grew, becoming today's Cheyney University.
John Beale Bordley
West Bradford Township, PA · est. 1953
John Beale Bordley bought land here in 1792 and named it Como Farm, turning it into a laboratory for the new scientific agriculture. He tested crop rotation and methods of keeping soil fertile, sketched improved machines for sowing and reaping wheat, and published widely read works on rotation and husbandry. He died in 1804, having helped push American farming from tradition toward experiment.