Emily Clark Huntington Miller was an American author, editor, poet, and educator who co-founded St. Nicholas Magazine, a publication for children. Earlier in her career, she served as the Assistant Editor of The Little Corporal, a children's magazine and Associate Editor of the Ladies' Home Journal. Miller and Jennie Fowler Willing were involved with organizing a convention in Cleveland in 1874, at which the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union was formed. In September 1891, Miller was appointed Dean of Women at Northwestern University in Illinois.
Aurilla Furber was a 19th-century American author, editor, and activist from Minnesota. She is remembered as an author of poetry from the Mississippi Valley. Her poems were included in publications such as the Magazine of Poetry and Women in Sacred Song. She also contributed prose articles for the Pioneer Press and Church Work, and was a contributing editor for the Woman's Record. Furber was an officer in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union's (WCTU) local, county and district organizations. She died in 1898.
Frances Laughton Mace was an American poet. Her poems first appeared in The Journal of Commerce. She was best remembered for the poem and hymn "Only Waiting", written when she was 18, and published in the Waterville Mail. Its authorship, for a time, was confused. The work was included in her volume Legends, Lyrics, and Sonnets. Her later work was included in Under Pine and Palm (1888) and Wild Roses of Maine (1896). Mace died in 1899.
Lucy H. Washington was an American poet and social reformer of the long nineteenth century, active in the temperance movement. For many years, she was engaged in Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) work, having given addresses in 24 states, and extended her efforts across the country. In 1878, she published a volume of poems, Echoes of Song, and this was followed by Memory's Casket.
Luella Dowd Smith was an American educator and author of prose and verse. She was active in social reform movements of the day. Smith taught school for ten years and was the principal of three high schools and one academy. She was also active in the areas of temperance, Sunday school, prohibition, and equal suffrage. Smith wrote for the National Temperance Society. She was the author of Wayside Leaves, 1879; Wind Flowers, 1887; Flowers from Foreign Fields, 1895; The Value of the Church, 1898; Thirteen Temperance Theses and Two Trilogies, 1901; as well as Ways to win, 1904; Daily ideas and ideals, 1930; and Along the way; poems, 1938.
M. E. Willson was an American gospel singer, lyricist, composer, and evangelist. She contributed words and music to most of the gospel song-books published between 1881 and 1893.
Matilda Maranda Crawford was an American-Canadian newspaper correspondent and poet. Songs of All Seasons, Climes and Times: A Motley Jingle of Jumbled Rhymes was published in 1890. In addition to contributing to the literary press, Crawford was engaged in teaching.
Emma A. Cranmer was an American temperance reformer, woman suffragist, and author. A talented suffrage speaker and prohibition representative, she served as president of the South Dakota Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and the South Dakota Equal Suffrage Association. Some of her epigrams were published by the press. Cranmer died in 1937.
Emma B. Dunham was an American poet and teacher of the long nineteenth century. She began writing for publication when very young, and continued to write for newspapers and magazines throughout her life. Some of her work was republished in Europe.
Melissa Elizabeth Banta was an American poet. She also wrote letters of travel.
Martha Capps Oliver was an American poet and hymnwriter. She was the author of A Year of Sacred Song (1895), A Year's Good Wishes (1895), Round the Year with the Poets (1900), The Far West, Easter Legend, and Christmas Legend, as well as several hundred Easter and Christmas booklets and poems, numerous songs, hymns, anthems, and cantatas. Oliver died in 1917.
Margaret Manton Merrill was a British-born American journalist, writer, translator, and elocutionist. At the age of twenty, she became the founder, owner and editor of the Colorado Temperance Gazette. She stayed in journalism for twelve years, where her noted successes were in the line of stories for children, while she likewise made translations from such diverse languages as Scandinavian and Sioux.
Esther T. Housh was a 19th-century American social reformer, author, and newspaper editor. While serving as national press superintendent of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU), she instituted the National Bulletin. She was the editor of The Woman's Magazine, as well as the author of many temperance leaflets, and poems. Housh died in 1898.
M. Wintermute was an American author and poet whose poems appeared in The Youth's Companion, as well as other papers and magazines. She was a writer of some celebrity, and the author of a volume entitled Eleven Women and Thirteen Men (1887).
Eva Munson Smith was an American composer, poet, and author. She was the author of Woman in Sacred Song (1885), a representative work of what women have done in hymnology. She was the author of a large number of temperance songs and other works, which became very popular. Her poems appeared in Poets of America and other standard works. Her best known productions were "Woodland Warblings", "American Rifle Team March", and "I Will Not Leave You Comfortless".
Mary Thompson Hill Willard was an American teacher and social reformer. Her daughter, Frances Willard, was the founder and president of the World's Woman's Christian Temperance Union (W.C.T.U.) as well as president of the National W.C.T.U.
Maria Straub was an American writer of prose, poetry, and hymns. She was best known for writing nearly 200 hymns, all of which were set to music by American composers. She was also a contributor to a number of journals. She was an ardent worker in the Woman's Christian Temperance Union (WCTU) and, although she suffered from poor health, Straub wielded an important influence through her songs and writings.
Ellen Oliver Van Fleet was a 19th-century American poet and hymnwriter. "The Wanderer's Prayer" is one of her more notable hymns. Under her maiden name, she published the hymns "Come, raise your flag, reformers", "The door of God's mercy is open", "They are winging, they are winging", "We are only boys in stature", and "With temperance banner wide unfurled". She never aspired to literary fame, and she always wrote for a purpose. Her contributions to various periodicals and magazines were numerous.
Isadore Gilbert Jeffery was an American writer of Christian poetry and hymn lyrics. Though she wrote prolifically for the religious press, she did not publish a book. For years, she was a constant contributor to The Advance and held a responsible position in the office of that Chicago weekly.
Woman in Sacred Song : a library of hymns, religious poems, and sacred music, by woman is an illustrated book of 880 quarto pages compiled by Eva Munson Smith with preface by Frances E. Willard, first published in 1885 in Boston by D. Lothrop & Company. It contains hymns and nearly 3,000 devotional, missionary, temperance, and miscellaneous poems, the work of about 820 women in the preceding 340 years. There are brief biographies and musical settings, as well as 140 pieces of music.
