Emily S. Oakey


Emily S. Oakey was an American educator, author, and poet from New York. She published Dialogues and Conversations and At the Foot of Parnassus , the latter of which included many poems that had first appeared in prominent periodicals such as The Century Magazine and The [Republican (Springfield, Massachusetts)|The Springfield Republican]. Writing the lyrics to the hymn “What Shall the Harvest Be?” in 1850, Oakey contributed poems to both literary and religious publications during her career. She spent nearly three decades teaching languages and literature at the Albany Female Academy.

Biography

Emily Sullivan Oakey was born October 8, 1829, in Albany, New York. She was graduated from the Albany Female Academy in 1850.
In 1850, she wrote the lyrics to "What Shall the Harvest Be?", but was not generally known until Ira D. Sankey included it among his solos, the music being composed especially for it by Philip Bliss. It was her only contribution to the cause of evangelism. She was the author of Dialogues and Conversations, as well as At the Foot of Parnassus, a collection of poems. Of the latter, several of the poems in this book were reprinted, by permission, from various periodical publications in which they first appeared, including Century Magazine, Outing, Albany Evening Journal, the Independent, the Christian Union, the Illustrated Christian Weekly, the Springfield Republican, the Criterion, Our Work at Home, and the Freeport, Illinois Journal.
Beginning in 1854 and until her death in 1883, she taught English literature, logic, Latin, German, and French in Albany Female Academy.
She died May 11, 1883, in Albany.

Selected works

  • Dialogues and Conversations, designed for the use of schools
  • ''At the Foot of Parnassus''

Attribution

Category:1829 births
Category:1883 deaths
Category:19th-century [American women educators]
Category:19th-century American educators
Category:19th-century American women musicians
Category:Writers from Albany, New York
New York (state)">New York (state)">New York (state)
Category:American lyricists
Category:American women hymnwriters