Woman in Sacred Song
{{Infobox book
| image = Woman in sacred song.. (IA womaninsacredson00smit).pdf
| image_size =
| border =
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| caption = Woman in sacred song : a library of hymns, religious poems, and sacred music, by woman (1888 edition)
| author = Eva Munson Smith
| country = U.S.
| language = English
| subject = {{hlist|poetry|musical compositions|biographical compilation}}
| genre = {{hlist|hymns|religious poems|sacred music}}
| publisher = D. Lothrop & Company
| publisher2 =
| pub_date = 1885
| pages = 880 quarto pages
| isbn = 1343522196
}}
Woman in Sacred Song : a library of hymns, religious poems, and sacred music, by woman is an illustrated book of 880 quarto pages compiled by Eva Munson Smith with preface by Frances E. Willard, first published in 1885 in Boston by D. Lothrop & Company.{{cite book |last1=Smith |first1=Eva Munson |title=Woman in sacred song : a library of hymns, religious poems, and sacred music, by woman |date=1885 |publisher=D. Lothrop |via=Internet Archive |location=Boston |url=https://archive.org/details/womaninsac00smit |access-date=24 September 2023 |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}} It contains hymns and nearly 3,000 devotional, missionary, temperance, and miscellaneous poems, the work of about 820 women in the preceding 340 years. There are brief biographies and musical settings,{{cite book |title=The Book Buyer |date=1886 |publisher=Charles Scribner's Sons |page=46 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=ZEkDAAAAYAAJ&pg=PA46 |access-date=24 September 2023 |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}} as well as 140 pieces of music.{{cite book |last1=Munson |first1=Myron Andrews |title=The Munson Record: A Genealogical and Biographical Account of Captain Thomas Munson (a Pioneer of Hartford and New Haven) and His Descendants |date=1895 |publisher=Munson Association |page=1107 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=fe-ZkRLKJVAC&pg=PA1107 |access-date=24 September 2023 |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}}
The larger part of the material was the product of living women. Through exhaustive research, Smith settled questions of disputed authorship, and did coupled popular verses with the names of the writers, where the former had been started anonymously or the two had become disunited by the accidents of the press. In this work, Smith traces the advancement of woman's poetical and musical capabilities from the middle of the 17th century to the time of writing - 1885 - and shows how rapid and substantial was the advancement.{{cite magazine |title=Woman in Sacred Song |magazine=The Brooklyn Magazine |date=January 1887 |volume=5 |issue=4 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=6qfQAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA2-PA191 |access-date=24 September 2023 |publisher=Brooklyn Magazine Company |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}}
At the age of 13, Louisa May Alcott wrote the hymn, "My Kingdom". When, years afterward, Smith wrote to Alcott, asking for some poems for Woman in Sacred Song, Alcott sent her "My Kingdom", saying, "It is the only hymn I ever wrote. It was composed at thirteen, and as I still find the same difficulty in governing my kingdom, it still expresses my soul's desire, and I have nothing better to offer."{{cite book |last1=Bolton |first1=Sarah Knowles |title=Lives of Girls who Became Famous |date=1886 |publisher=T. Y. Crowell & Company |page=108 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=b_pZAAAAMAAJ&pg=PA108 |access-date=24 September 2023 |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}}
Later editions contained poems written by 830 women and 150 musical compositions by 50 different women.{{cite book |last1=Stanton |first1=Elizabeth Cady |last2=Anthony |first2=Susan Brownell |last3=Gage |first3=Matilda Joslyn |last4=Harper |first4=Ida Husted |title=History of Woman Suffrage: 1883-1900 |date=1902 |publisher=Fowler & Wells |page=613 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=BlMOAQAAIAAJ&pg=PA613 |access-date=24 September 2023 |language=en}} {{Source-attribution}}
In 1893, Smith was invited to deliver an address before the World's Congress of Representative Women on the topic of the same name: "Woman in Sacred Song".{{cite book |last1=Eagle |first1=Mary Kavanaugh Oldham |title=The Congress of Women Held in the Woman's Building, World's Columbian Exposition, Chicago, U.S.A., 1893 ...: With Portraits, Biographies and Addresses |date=1894 |publisher=Wilson |pages=416–22 |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=cQk_AQAAMAAJ&pg=PA416 |access-date=24 September 2023 |language=en |chapter=Woman in Sacred song, by Mrs. Eva Munson Smith.}} {{Source-attribution}}