Harriet Krauth
1845–1925

Introduction

Born: Sep­tem­ber 21, 1845, Bal­ti­more, Ma­ry­land.

Died: May 5, 1925, Phi­la­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia.

Buried: Mount Vernon Ce­me­te­ry, Phi­la­del­phia, Penn­syl­van­ia.

Biography

Harriet was the daugh­ter of hymn trans­lat­or Charles Krauth. and wife of Adolph Spaeth, pas­tor of St. Jo­han­nis Church in Phi­la­del­phia (and lat­er pre­si­dent of the Ge­ne­ral Coun­cil of the Lu­ther­an Church in Am­eri­ca) .

She at­tend­ed the Girls’ School in Phi­la­del­phia, and lived in­de­pend­ent­ly as a writ­er.

She sang con­tral­to, played the pi­ano and or­gan, and for ma­ny years was the or­gan­ist at St. Ste­phen’s Church in west Phi­la­del­phia.

She worked zeal­ous­ly for the found­ing of the Krauth Me­mo­ri­al Lib­ra­ry at the se­mi­na­ry in Phi­la­del­phia, and was ac­tive in the work of the Ma­ry J. Drex­el Home, the Lank­en­au Hos­pi­tal, and the Lu­ther­an Or­phans’ Home in Ger­man­town, Penn­syl­van­ia.

Works

Spaeth pro­vid­ed hymn trans­la­tions for The Church Book (1868) and The Sun­day School Hym­nal (1901), and was re­spon­si­ble for the mu­sic edi­tion of The Church Book (1872).

Many of her es­says were pub­lished in The Lu­ther­an.

When Am­eri­can Lu­ther­ans adopt­ed the Com­mon Service in 1888, she pre­pared an edi­tion with notes for chant­ing the ser­vice.

Her oth­er works in­clude:

Sources

Lyrics

Translations

Help Needed

If you know where to get a good pho­to of Spaeth (head & shoul­ders, at least 200×300 pix­els),