ROBINSON, Miss Fannie Ruth, author and educator, born in Carbondale, Pa., 30th September, 1847. In 1859 her parents took up their residence in Albany, N. Y., and there the formative years of her life were passed.
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FANNIE RUTH ROBINSON.
She was graduated at the age of seventeen years from the Albany Female Academy, and later received the degree of A. M. from Rutgers' College, New York. Among the influences which quickened her early ambitions, she recognizes three: First, the impulses received from a small circle of men and women, some of whom were very much older than herself; second, the impetus given to youthful ambitions by a class of young people in the alumnae of the female academy, and third, the lift into a rarer air which was hers, happily through many seasons, when Emerson and Phillips, Curtis and Beecher, Chapin and Holmes went to the capital city at the bidding of the Lyceum. She began to write early. Most of her published poems appeared in "Harper's Magazine" in the years between 1870 and 1880, during which time she wrote occasionally for the "Contributor's Club" of the "Atlantic Monthly." Her poem, "A Quaker's Christmas Eve," was copied in almost every city in the Union. Albany twice paid her the honor of asking for her verse, once for the services of the first Decoration Day, and again when an ode was to be written for the ceremony of laying the corner-stone of the capitol. In 1879 she began to teach, and since then she has written little for publication. A poem on Emerson, published after his death in the "Journal of Philosophy," is considered one of her best. Two of her sonnets found place in the collection of "Representative American Sonnets," made in 1890 by Mr. Crandall. She is at present preceptress of Ferry Hall Seminary, the woman's department of Lake Forest University, Lake Forest, Ill., a position she has held since 18S8. She is a member of the Woman's Educational Auxiliary of the Columbian Exposition.