Harriet Reynolds Krauth Spaeth

Harriet Reynolds Krauth Spaeth [Harriet Krauth], 1845-1925

Born: September 21, 1845, Baltimore, Maryland.
Died: May 5, 1925, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
Buried: Mount Vernon Cemetery, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Daughter of hymn translator Charles Krauth, Harriet attended the Girls’ School in Philadelphia, and lived independently as a writer. In 1880, she married Adolph Spaeth, pastor of St. Johannis Church in Philadelphia (and later president of the General Council of the Lutheran Church in America). She sang contralto, played the piano and organ, and for many years was the organist at St. Stephen’s Church in west Philadelphia. She provided hymn translations for The Church Book (1868), The Sunday School Hymnal (1901), and was responsible for the music edition of The Church Book (1872). Many of her essays were published in The Lutheran. When American Lutherans adopted the Common Service in 1888, she prepared an edition with notes for chanting the service. She worked zealously for the founding of the Krauth Memorial Library at the seminary in Philadelphia, and was active in the work of the Mary J. Drexel Home, the Lankenau Hospital, and the Lutheran Orphans’ Home in Germantown, Pennsylvania. Her works include:

The Deaconess and Her Works
Pictures from the Life of Hans Sachs
The Church Book with Music, 1893
Charles Porterfield Krauth: A Life (2 volumes, 1898 & 1909, with Adolph Spaeth, uncredited)
Life of Adolph Spaeth, 1916

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