Mary Artemisia Lathbury

Mary Artemisia Lathbury was an American Methodist writer, illustrator, educator, editor, and hymn writer born in Manchester, Ontario County, New York, in 1841. The daughter of a Methodist minister and sister of two Methodist ministers, she worked as an art teacher and became active in religious publishing. By 1877 she was assisting John H. Vincent with Methodist Sunday school work and was deeply involved in the young Chautauqua Lake Sunday School Assembly. A contemporary obituary also records her work as superintendent of a large Chinese Sunday school in New York. ([Hymnology Archive][1])

At Chautauqua, Lathbury supplied literature, illustrations, hymns, and devotional material for an educational movement that began with the training of Sunday school teachers. She wrote “Break Thou the Bread of Life” in 1877 specifically as a study hymn for the Assembly’s Normal Classes. She also wrote “Day Is Dying in the West,” another text that became closely associated with Chautauqua worship. Her connection became so strong that later writers called her the “Poet Laureate of Chautauqua.” ([Hymnology Archive][2])

Lathbury published juvenile stories, poetry, and illustrated books as well as hymns. Her career is a useful reminder that nineteenth-century hymnody often grew out of Christian education, publishing, art, and organized lay ministry rather than from clergy alone. ([Hymnology Archive][1])