cover image HER HEART CAN SEE: The Life and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby

HER HEART CAN SEE: The Life and Hymns of Fanny J. Crosby

Edith L. Blumhofer, . . Eerdmans, $20 (365pp) ISBN 978-0-8028-4253-4

Anyone who has stood in church and sung "Blessed Assurance" or "Redeemed, How I Love to Proclaim It" is familiar with the work of Fanny Crosby (1820–1915), one of America's most esteemed and prolific Protestant hymn-writers. In a marvelous new biography, Wheaton College history professor Blumhofer tells Crosby's story. The musician, blind from infancy, was educated at the New York Institute for the Blind, where she later taught. In 1858, she married Alexander van Alstine, but their marriage was unusual, in that they lived apart for lengthy spells and led largely separate lives. Though she played the piano, harp, organ and guitar, and published several volumes of poetry as a young woman, she didn't turn to hymnody until midlife. Crosby was well-educated, but she never learned to write legibly, so she composed verses in her head and remembered the words until someone turned up to take dictation; sometimes she "wrote" an entire hymn in 20 minutes. She was also active in urban mission work and gave her time to institutions like the YMCA and the Bowery Mission. Not only does Blumhofer offer a lively account of Crosby's many accomplishments, she also contextualizes Crosby's life in larger currents of American history, including the rise of Sunday schools and the mid–19th-century movement to "elevat[e] the nation's musical taste" and "introduc[e] music into the public schools." This is a splendid and entertaining contribution to American religious history. (May)