Sisters In Song; Women Hymn Writers. Leslie Clay

by women. A general hymnbook in my personal library published in 1866 contains 466 hymns from the earlier part of the 19th century and before, and only 29, or 6%, were by women. If you attend a church, you may want to check out the hymnbook it uses. I hope the percentage has increased from both the 1866 and 1935 hymnbooks.

      The advent of Vatican II opened up a new avenue for Roman Catholic women, who were not very prominent as hymn writers before then. Wonderful works for the folk mass came from their hearts and pens. I wish more of those songs could filter into the Protestant hymnals.

      Some women still write hymns that fit into the traditional gospel format. These are what I would call current traditionalists, though they take a more feminist slant and use more inclusive language than in eras past. Today women also are integral to a new era of non-traditional praise music. The format is less structured, and the message is simpler. Often, women-written praise music songs have become award-winning hits in the Christian music world, and sometimes become accepted, if not blockbuster hits, in the mainstream culture.

      The African American tradition also occupies an interesting niche in hymn writing. Most early hymns had no known author, and came down as spirituals from an oral tradition by mainly illiterate slaves. These were sung in the rural setting, often in secret. As black Americans moved to Northern cities in the great migration beginning in the late 19th century, black gospel songs arose. The authors were known and the congregation sang them openly in churches rather than cotton fields. Gospel was the sacred counterpart to the secular black urban music, the Blues, and included lots of improvisation and emotion. Women performers, such as Mahalia Jackson to Ethel Waters, are better known than the women Gospel writers. How little we understand the large part women played as composers and authors! This book includes several sketches of modern African American women.

      The overall outlook of the hymns and hymnists in this book emphasizes inclusion and acceptance of all viewpoints from saints and sinners alike. I hope you can accept this book with an open heart and mind. As in all areas in life, there’s so much to gain and we are richer when that happens.

      I invite you into the following pages. I hope, like me, you find that the viewpoints represented here, from saints and sinners alike, give you a fresh perspective on the contributions that women have made, through music, to our spiritual heritage.

      Sarah Fuller Flower Adams

      1805-1848

      “Nearer My God to Thee”

      Her mother died when Sarah was five, and she was raised by her father, a journalist/politician in Harlow, England. In 1834, she married William Adams, a railway engineer. When she aspired to be an actress, God had other plans. Though she played Lady Macbeth in 1837, her career was cut short by poor health. Writing then became the outlet for her creative impulses. Her sister Eliza was musically talented and in Eliza’s later years wrote music for some of Sarah’s hymns. Together, they wrote popular political and protest songs concerning women’s rights, suffrage, and civil and religious liberty.

      Her works also included many magazine articles, “Vivia Perpetua”, a poem about Perpetua, a Christian martyr in Carthage in 203 A.D. whose story of spiritual and intellectual struggle was much like her own. She also wrote a children’s catechism, and thirteen entries in Hymns and Anthems published in 1841. Most of her hymns were written before association with the Monthly Repository, a radical magazine. Adams attended South Place Unitarian Church in Finsbury, London, but became a Baptist in her later life.

      One day in 1841, her pastor visited. He was compiling a hymnbook and told her he was frustrated that he couldn’t find a hymn to go along with the upcoming Sunday sermon of Jacob’s ladder in Genesis 28. She wrote “Nearer My God to Thee” in time for his sermon. It has been reported, but not confirmed, that her childhood friend, Robert Browning, indirectly inspired the hymn. Browning’s influence revived her Christian faith when her poor health took her to a spiritual low point. This was the only hymn written in her later years. It was President McKinley’s favorite. He recited it as he lay dying. Teddy Roosevelt and the Rough Riders sang it when they buried their comrades. Perhaps it is most famous as the song reportedly played as the Titanic sank.

      Doris Akers

      1922-1995

      “Sweet, Sweet Spirit”

      This African-American woman with an indepen-dent spirit was born in Brookfield Missouri, one of ten children. This was in a time and place when African-Americans had an especially difficult time in American society, education, and jobs. Her family moved to Kirksville, Missouri when she was five. She learned to play the piano by ear and by age ten, had composed her first song. At age twelve, she organized a band. By the time she was twenty-two, Doris had moved to Los Angeles where she met a thriving gospel music community. Several years later, she formed the publishing firm, Akers Music House. In 1958, she started a racially mixed gospel group, The Sky Pilot Choir, for the Sky Pilot Church in Los Angeles. That same year, she and Mahalia Jackson wrote “Lord, Don’t Move the Mountain”, which sold a million records. Beginning in the 1950s, she also published with white-owned Manna Music, bridging the then separated black and white gospel music businesses. During her career, she wrote more than 300 songs and is one of the better known twentieth century gospel composers. She was inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 2001. The Smithsonian Institute honored her and labeled her songs and records, “National Treasures.” Doris is sometimes referred to as “Mrs. Gospel Music.”

      One Sunday morning in 1962, the Sky Pilot Choir prayed before the service as was usual, but she told her singers, “You aren’t ready to go in” to perform. She didn’t think they had prayed enough! They needed to pray until they felt sure they had heard God. She asked for more prayer, and they did so with renewed fervor. As they prayed, she wondered how she could stop that wonderful prayer meeting in order to begin the service. Finally, the call of the congregation compelled her to tell them to leave the room to perform. “I hate to leave this room and I know you hate to leave, but you know we do have to go to the service. But there is such a sweet, sweet spirit in this place.” The next morning, she composed “Sweet, Sweet Spirit.” Doris said, “Songwriters always have their ears open to a song. The song started ‘singing’ to me. . . . The next morning, to my surprise, I heard the song again, so I went to the piano and wrote it.”

      Cecil Frances ‘Fanny’ Humphreys Alexander

      1818-1895

      “All Things Bright and Beautiful”

      “Once in Royal David’s City”

      “Jesus Calls Us”

      She has been called the finest of all hymn writers for children. Fanny, as she was known, was born in Wicklow, Ireland and began writing verse as a child. Her father, an officer in the Royal Marines, was a demanding man. Unsure of his approval, she hid her poems under the carpet. But after he discovered them when she was only nine years old, he made a box with a slot in the top for her to place her poems. He then set aside Saturday evenings to read them to the family. By the 1840s, she was already known as a hymn writer, often writing to help the boys’ Sunday school class, which she taught in order to learn Christian doctrine, and her songs were soon included in Church of Ireland hymnbooks. Money from her first publications helped build a school for the deaf in 1846 and her book profits from Hymns for Little Children were donated to the school. This book was so successful, it went through 100 editions. After gaining some success as a writer, she married a much younger man, an Anglican clergyman, Bishop of Derry, in 1850. She loved the people of his parish and loved to go from house to house to visit the sick, poor, and grieving. Her husband said, with some pride, that he would be remembered as Cecil’s husband. Though she was oblivious to the accolades given to her compositions, she could be moved. When told that a man had a change of heart toward God upon hearing her verse, she rose and exclaimed, “Thank God, I do like to hear that.”

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