Frances Jane Crosby

Frances Jane Crosby, widely known as Fanny J. Crosby, was an American poet, teacher, mission worker, and one of the most prolific writers of nineteenth-century gospel songs. Born in Southeast, Putnam County, New York, in 1820, she became blind in infancy. At fifteen she entered the New York Institution for the Blind, where she later taught English grammar, rhetoric, and American history. She married fellow musician Alexander Van Alstyne in 1858 and continued to publish under the name Fanny J. Crosby.

Crosby began writing Sunday-school hymns for William B. Bradbury in the 1860s and subsequently worked with many leading composers and publishers, including William H. Doane, Robert Lowry, Phoebe Palmer Knapp, John R. Sweney, William J. Kirkpatrick, and Ira D. Sankey. Publishers sometimes issued her work under numerous pseudonyms because of the extraordinary volume of her output.

Her best-known texts include "Blessed Assurance," "Rescue the Perishing," "Pass Me Not, O Gentle Savior," "Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross," and "To God Be the Glory." A member of the Methodist Episcopal Church, Crosby also spent significant time in New York rescue-mission work. Her gospel songs combine biblical imagery, personal testimony, evangelistic invitation, and language intended for broad congregational use.