Lucy H. King Smith Papers, 1932-1937.
(Document/manuscript/pamphlet/archival material)

Materials housed in Special Collections Division of the Main Library, Nashville Public Library.

Housed in Small Collections Box 9.

In library use only. Available by appointment.

Scope and content: Four undated typescript poems, two programs, and some notes relating to the career and poetry of Lucy H. King Smith (Mrs. Alfred Franklin Smith) of Nashville, Tenn. Poems, enumerated above, often are descriptive of specific places or locales. "The Jewel Box at Eastertide," for example, is about a building in Forest Park, St. Louis, Missouri. Both "The House on the Cliff by the Sea" and "Sunset on the Sea" are about Crestcliffe by the Sea, an unidentified location. "That Old Wesley Teapot" has a note which refers to a sesquicentennial and Baltimore, Md. and may have been written during the United States Sesquicentennial in 1926. One program is from the "Poet's Roundtable" at Columbus, Ohio, on Sept. 26, 1934. The other program is from a Christmas Poetry Recital held for the Methodist Publishing House in Nashville, Tenn. on Dec. 19, 1932. Notes may be a brief outline of her life and career, possibly to be used as an introduction at one of her readings. Some of the notes and annotations on the programs appear to be in Mrs. Smith's handwriting. Also included is a typescript of a poem entitled "The Old-Fashioned Lady" by Lida Kelly Stratton.

Cite as: Lucy H. King Smith Papers, Special Collections Division, Nashville Public Library

Nashville Public Library does not have intellectual property rights to these materials.

Source of acquisition unknown. Possibly donated by the author, 19 May 1937, when her book, Harpstrings of a Nation, was donated to the library;,Acc. RT-100.

Lucy H. King Smith (Mrs. Alfred Franklin Smith) was born in Columbus, Ohio in 1871. She married her husband in 1892 at Medicine Lodge, Kansas. He was a publishing agent for the Methodist Publishing House. She lived in Missouri, Oklahoma, and Mississippi before coming to Nashville, Tenn. where she spent the last seventeen years of her life. She was in charge of the Department of Vocal Music at Central College for Women at Lexington, Mo. when her husband was president of the college. As a poet, she published three volumes of verse: Cathedral Beautiful, Cadences, and Harpstrings of a Nation. Her poetry often focused upon biographical, historical, or spiritual topics, or contained subjects inspired by her many travels, such as specific tourist sites, cities, or countries. She was a concert singer and studied music at Boston, New York, London, Paris, and Florence, Italy. She was a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution, the National League of American Pen Women, the British Poetry League, the Empire Society of London, and other organizations. She died on June 23, 1940 in Nashville, Tenn. and was buried in Saint Louis, Mo.

In English

Unknown provenance.

Rehouse;,2009;,Linda Barnickel;,removed from Biography Ephemera Subject Files.

No further accruals are expected.