Scott Joplin grew up in Texarkana, Texas, in a musical family. Local teachers taught him to play piano. In the mid-1880s, he began performing throughout the Midwest. He played what came to be called ragtime music. In 1893 Joplin performed at the World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago. He published the “Maple Leaf Rag” in 1899. The song sold 500,000 copies and pushed ragtime and Joplin into the spotlight. Joplin wrote more than 50 piano rags and composed a ragtime opera. Joplin moved to New York in 1907 and began work on another opera, Treemonisha. Joplin wrote and played less often after 1912. Suffering from a mental illness, he was placed in an institution in 1917 and died a few weeks later.
