114 Facts About Fanny Crosby

Frances Jane van Alstyne, more commonly known as Fanny J Crosby, was an American mission worker, poet, lyricist, and composer.

Fanny Crosby was a prolific hymnist, writing more than 8,000 hymns and gospel songs, with more than 100 million copies printed.

Fanny Crosby is known for her teaching and her rescue mission work.

Some publishers were hesitant to have so many hymns by one person in their hymnals, so Fanny Crosby used nearly 200 different pseudonyms during her career.

Fanny Crosby wrote more than 1,000 secular poems and had four books of poetry published, as well as two best-selling autobiographies.

Fanny Crosby was committed to Christian rescue missions and was known for her public speaking.

Frances Jane Fanny Crosby was born on March 24,1820, in the village of Brewster, about 50 miles north of New York City.

Fanny Crosby was the only child of John Crosby and his second wife Mercy Crosby, both of whom were relatives of Revolutionary War spy Enoch Crosby.

Fanny Crosby was a widower who had a daughter from his first marriage.

Fanny Crosby was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution in Bridgeport, Connecticut, writing the verses of the state song of the Connecticut branch.

At six weeks old, Fanny Crosby caught a cold and developed inflammation of the eyes.

When Fanny Crosby was three, the family moved to North Salem, New York, where Eunice had been raised.

At age eight, Fanny Crosby wrote her first poem which described her condition.

In 1828, Mercy and Fanny Crosby moved to the home of a Mrs Hawley in Ridgefield, Connecticut.

Fanny Crosby memorized five chapters of the Bible each week from age 10, with the encouragement of her grandmother and later Mrs Hawley; by age 15, she had memorized the four gospels, the Pentateuch, the Book of Proverbs, the Song of Solomon, and many of the Psalms.

Fanny Crosby enrolled at the New York Institution for the Blind in 1835, just before her 15th birthday.

Fanny Crosby remained there for eight years as a student, and another two years as a graduate pupil, during which time she learned to play the piano, organ, harp, and guitar, and became a good soprano singer.

Fanny Crosby was the first woman to speak in the United States Senate when she read a poem there.

Fanny Crosby appeared before the joint houses of Congress and recited these lines:.

Fanny Crosby was among the students from the NYIB who gave a concert for Congress on January 24,1844.

Fanny Crosby recited an original composition calling for an institution for educating the blind in every state which was praised by John Quincy Adams, among others.

President James K Polk visited the NYIB in 1845 and Crosby recited a poem that she composed for the occasion which praised "republican government".

Fanny Crosby testified before a special congressional subcommittee, and she performed in the music room at the White House for President Polk and his wife.

In 1846, Fanny Crosby was an instructor at the NYIB and was listed as a "graduate pupil".

Fanny Crosby subsequently joined the school's faculty, teaching grammar, rhetoric, and history; she remained there until three days before her wedding on March 5,1858.

Fanny Crosby wrote for her a recommendation which was published in her 1906 autobiography.

Fanny Crosby wrote a poem that was read at the dedication of Cleveland's birthplace in Caldwell, New Jersey, in March 1913, being unable to attend due to her health.

Fanny Crosby was a longtime member of the Sixth Avenue Bible Baptist Church in Brooklyn, New York, which has been in existence continuously since 1867.

Fanny Crosby served as a consecrated Baptist missionary, deaconess, and lay preacher.

Fanny Crosby wrote hymns together with her minister Robert Lowry, such as "All the Way My Savior Leads Me" and many others.

Fanny Crosby began to realize that something was lacking in her spiritual life.

Fanny Crosby knew that she had gotten wrapped up in social, political, and educational reform, and did not have a true love for God in her heart.

Fanny Crosby attended churches of various denominations until spring 1887, including the Plymouth Church of the Pilgrims in Brooklyn Heights led by Congregationalist abolitionist Henry Ward Beecher who was an innovator with church music.

Fanny Crosby attended the Trinity Episcopal church, and liked to worship at the North West Dutch Reformed church and the Central Presbyterian Church.

Fanny Crosby was not identified publicly with the American holiness movement of the second half of the 19th century and left no record of an experience of entire sanctification.

Fanny Crosby vacationed each summer at Ocean Grove between 1877 and 1897, where she would speak in the Great Auditorium and hold receptions in her cottage to meet her admirers.

Fanny Crosby called him "Kirkie" and wrote many hymns with him.

Fanny Crosby was examined by George Combe, a visiting Scottish phrenologist, who pronounced her a "born poetess".

Fanny Crosby had experienced some temporary opposition to her poetry by the faculty of the Blind Institution, but her inclination to write was encouraged by this experience.

Fanny Crosby's poems were published frequently in The Saturday Evening Post, the Clinton Signal, the Fireman's Journal, and the Saturday Emporium.

Fanny Crosby was reluctant to have her poems published, as she considered them to be "unfinished productions", but she acquiesced eventually because it would publicize the Institution and raise funds for it.

Fanny Crosby stated in her 1903 autobiography, edited by Will Carleton, that she "was under a feeling of sadness and depression at this time".

For many years, Fanny Crosby was usually paid only $1 or $2 per poem, with all rights to the song being retained by the composer or publisher of the music.

Between 1852 and 1854, Fanny Crosby wrote the librettos of three cantatas for Root.

The second Root-Fanny Crosby cantata was Daniel, or the Captivity and Restoration, based on the Old Testament's story of Daniel.

In 1854, Root and Fanny Crosby collaborated to compose The Pilgrim Fathers, described as an "antebellum landmark" in dramatic cantatas.

Fanny Crosby visited the New York Institution for the Blind in New York City, where Crosby lived.

Fanny Crosby was a strict abolitionist and supported Abraham Lincoln and the newly created Republican Party.

Fanny Crosby's text encourages volunteers to join the Union forces and incorporates references to the history of the United States, including the Pilgrim Fathers and the Battle of Bunker Hill.

Also during the American Civil War, Fanny Crosby wrote "Song to Jeff Davis" directed at Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederate States of America, which expressed her belief in the morality of the Union cause: "Our stars and stripes are waving, And Heav'n will speed our cause".

Fanny Crosby was blind and enrolled at the NYIB, where he was a casual acquaintance of Crosby and sometimes a student in her classes.

Fanny Crosby was a teacher at NYIB for two years from 1855; during this time, the couple were engaged to be married, necessitating her resignation from NYIB three days prior to their wedding at Maspeth, New York, on March 5,1858.

At her husband's insistence, Fanny Crosby continued to use her maiden name as her literary name, but she chose to use her married name on all legal documents.

The couple could have lived comfortably on their combined income, but Fanny Crosby "had other priorities and gave away anything that was not necessary to their daily survival".

Van and Fanny Crosby organized concerts with half the proceeds given to aid the poor, in which she gave recitations of her poems and sang, and he played various instruments.

Van provided the music for some of her poetry, although Fanny Crosby indicated that "his taste was mostly for the wordless melodies of the classics".

In 1874, Fanny Crosby was reported to be "living in a destitute condition".

At one point soon after, Fanny Crosby moved to a "dismal flat" at 9 Frankfort Street, near one of Manhattan's worst slums in the Lower East Side.

For example, Alexander played a piano solo at the third annual reunion of the Underhill Society of America on June 15,1895, in Yonkers, New York, while Fanny Crosby read an ode to Captain John Underhill, the progenitor of the American branch of the Underhill family.

In 1896, Crosby moved from Manhattan to an apartment in a poor section of Brooklyn, living with friends at South Third Street, Brooklyn, near the home of Ira D Sankey and his wife Fannie, and near the mansion owned by Phoebe Knapp.

Fanny Crosby was "the most prolific of all nineteenth-century American sacred song writers".

Fanny Crosby set a goal of winning a million people to Christ through her hymns, and whenever she wrote a hymn she prayed it would bring women and men to Christ, and kept careful records of those reported to have been saved through her hymns.

Fanny Crosby's hymns were popular because they placed "a heightened emphasis on religious experiences, emotions, and testimonies" and reflected "a sentimental, romanticized relationship between the believer and Christ", rather than using the negative descriptions of earlier hymns that emphasised the sinfulness of people.

Fanny Crosby's hymns were published by many notable publishers and publishing companies:.

Doane and Fanny Crosby collaborated through Biglow and Main, and privately through Doane's Northern Baptist endeavours.

In early 1868 Fanny Crosby met wealthy Methodist Phoebe Palmer Knapp, who was married to Joseph Fairchild Knapp, co-founder of the Metropolitan Life Insurance Company.

From 1871 to 1908, Fanny Crosby worked with Ira Sankey, who helped make her "a household name to Protestants around the world".

Fanny Crosby was close friends with Sankey and his wife, Frances, and often stayed with them at their home in Northfield, Massachusetts, from 1886 for the annual summer Christian Workers' Conferences, and later in their Brooklyn.

On one occasion, Fanny Crosby composed 40 hymns before they were transcribed.

In 1903, Fanny Crosby claimed that "Spring Hymn" was the only hymn for which she wrote both the words and music.

In 1906 Fanny Crosby composed both the words and music for "The Blood-Washed Throng", which was published and copyrighted by gospel singer Mary Upham Currier, a distant cousin who had been a well-known concert singer.

Fanny Crosby celebrated the rescue mission movement in her 1895 hymn "The Rescue Band".

Fanny Crosby had lived for decades in such areas of Manhattan as Hell's Kitchen, the Bowery, and the Tenderloin.

Fanny Crosby was aware of the great needs of immigrants and the urban poor, and was passionate to help those around her through urban rescue missions and other compassionate ministry organizations.

Fanny Crosby supported the American Female Guardian Society and Home for the Friendless at 29 East 29th Street, for whom she wrote a hymn in 1865 that was sung by some of the Home's children:.

Fanny Crosby wrote "More Like Jesus Would I Be" in June 1867 expressly for the sixth anniversary of the Howard Mission and Home for Little Wanderers, a nondenominational mission at New Bowery, Manhattan.

Fanny Crosby was inspired to write "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Saviour" after speaking at a service at the Manhattan prison in spring 1868, from comments by some prisoners for the Lord not to pass them by.

Fanny Crosby returned, one day, from a visit to a mission in one of the worst districts in New York City, where she had heard about the needs of the lost and perishing.

Fanny Crosby's sympathies were aroused to help the lowly and neglected, and the cry of her heart went forth in this hymn, which has become a battle cry for the great army of Christian workers throughout the world.

In 1880, aged 60, Fanny Crosby "made a new commitment to Christ to serve the poor" and to devote the rest of her life to home missionary work.

Fanny Crosby continued to live in a dismal flat at 9 Frankfort Street, near one of the worst slums in Manhattan, until about 1884.

Fanny Crosby spoke at YMCAs, churches, and prisons about the needs of the urban poor.

For example, Fanny Crosby wrote the words for the song "The Red Pledge" before 1879, which advocated total abstinence from imbibing alcohol.

From about 1880, Fanny Crosby attended and supported the Helping Hand for Men in Manhattan, "America's first rescue mission", which was founded by a married couple to minister to alcoholics and the unemployed.

Fanny Crosby often attended the Water Street Mission, "conversing and counseling with those she met".

Fanny Crosby supported the Bowery Mission in Manhattan for two decades, beginning in November 1881.

Fanny Crosby addressed large crowds attending the anniversary service each year until the building was razed in a fire in 1897.

Fanny Crosby attended the nightly 8 pm services, where gospel songs were often sung that were written by her and Doane, including "ballads recalling mother's prayers, reciting the evils of intemperance, or envisioning agonizing deathbed scenes intending to arouse long-buried memories and strengthen resolves".

Fanny Crosby was inspired to write a prayer after the death of Jerry McAuley in 1884 which was later included in rescue song books:.

Fanny Crosby's hymn writing declined in later years, but she was active in speaking engagements and missionary work among America's urban poor almost until she died.

Fanny Crosby was well known, and she often met with presidents, generals, and other dignitaries.

However, Knapp and others believed that Biglow and Main had made enormous profits because of Fanny Crosby without compensating her adequately for her contributions, and that she should be living more comfortably in her advanced years.

Fanny Crosby had been ill with a serious heart condition for a few months by May 1900, and she still showed some effects from a fall, so her half-sisters traveled to Brooklyn to convince her to move from her room in the home of poet Will Carleton in Brooklyn to Bridgeport, Connecticut.

Fanny Crosby transferred her church membership from Cornell Memorial Methodist Church in Manhattan to the First Methodist Church of Bridgeport in 1904, after moving to Bridgeport.

Fanny Crosby did not attend the funeral due to her own poor health.

On May 2,1911, Fanny Crosby spoke to 5,000 people at the opening meeting of the Evangelistic Committee's seventh annual campaign held in Carnegie Hall, after the crowd sang her songs for thirty minutes.

American poet, author, and lecturer Will Carleton was a wealthy friend with whom Fanny Crosby had lived in her last years in Brooklyn.

Fanny Crosby had been giving lectures on her hymns and life, and had published a series of articles about her in his Every Where magazine in 1901, for which he paid her $10 an article.

Fanny Crosby is quoted, referring to Biglow and Main: "with whom I have maintained most cordial and even affectionate relations, for many years past".

Fanny Crosby indicated she had no desire to be a homeowner, and that if she ever lived in poverty, it was by her own choice.

Sankey paid the rent on the Bridgeport house where Fanny Crosby lived with her half-sister Carrie.

Fanny Crosby implied in an article in The Christian that "the Carleton business had been of Satanic origin and commented, echoing the wheat and tares passage in scripture, 'An enemy hath done this'".

In 1904, Phoebe Knapp contacted Methodist Episcopal Church Bishop Charles Cardwell McCabe and enlisted his assistance in publicizing Fanny Crosby's poverty, raising funds to ameliorate that situation.

McCabe indicated that Fanny Crosby's "hymns have never been copyrighted in her own name, she has sold them for small sums to the publishers who hold the copyright themselves, and the gifted authoress has but little monetary reward for hymns that have been sung all over the world".

Fanny Crosby wrote a letter to Bishop McCabe in response to his fundraising on her behalf.

In December 1905 Fanny Crosby issued a card protesting the continued sale of Carleton's book, again denying she was "in distress", as she was in "comfortable circumstances and very active", giving lectures nearly once a week.

Fanny Crosby indicated she had received less than $325 from the sale of the book, that her "requests had been disregarded", but that "when these facts are fully known to all, the publishers can sell the book as they desire; only I have no wish to increase its sale for my own benefit, which, of course, is very small".

Fanny Crosby died at Bridgeport of arteriosclerosis and a cerebral hemorrhage on February 12,1915, after a six-month illness, aged 94.

Fanny Crosby was buried at Mountain Grove Cemetery in Bridgeport, CT near her mother and other members of her family.

Fanny Crosby's family erected a very small tombstone at her request which carried the words: "Aunt Fanny: She hath done what she could; Fanny J Crosby".

On Sunday, March 26,1905, Fanny Crosby Day was celebrated in churches of many denominations around the world, with special worship services in honor of her 85th birthday two days earlier.

Fanny Crosby left money in her will for "the sheltering of senior males who had no other place to live, with these men to pay a nominal fee to the home for their living expenses".

Fanny Crosby was posthumously inducted into the Gospel Music Hall of Fame in 1975.

Fanny Crosby's presentation included stories of her productive and charitable life, some of her hymns, and a few of his own uplifting songs.