Cordelia Ray facts for kids
Henrietta Cordelia Ray (born August 30, 1852 – died January 5, 1916) was an African-American poet and teacher. She was the sister of Charlotte E. Ray and the daughter of a famous newspaper publisher, Charles Bennett Ray.
Biography
Henrietta Cordelia Ray was born in New York City in 1852. She was one of seven children born to Charlotte Augusta Burrough and Charles Bennett Ray, who was a clergyman, an abolitionist (someone who worked to end slavery), and a newspaper publisher. Cordelia was named after her father's first wife, Henrietta Ray.
In 1891, Cordelia graduated from the University of the City of New York. She earned a master's in pedagogy, which is the study of teaching. She also learned several languages, including French, German, Greek, and Latin. After her studies, she became a schoolteacher. However, she later stopped teaching to focus on her writing.
Cordelia Ray's poem, an ode called "Lincoln," was read aloud in April 1876. This happened at the special event where the Emancipation Memorial was revealed in Washington, D.C.. This memorial celebrates the freeing of enslaved people.
In 1887, she wrote a book about her father with her sister Florence. It was published by J.J. Little & Co.. Her own collection of poems, called Sonnets, was printed in 1893. Her book Poems came out later, in 1910.
Henrietta Cordelia Ray passed away in 1916.
Her Poetry: Sonnets
Ray's book Sonnets, published in 1893, was a short collection of 12 poems. These poems were about famous people like John Milton, William Shakespeare, Raphael, and Ludwig van Beethoven.
One important sonnet was about Toussaint Louverture, a hero who led a revolution in Haiti. This poem showed her interest in black politics, which was a new topic for her writing. It also referred to a famous poem by William Wordsworth about Toussaint L'Overture.
Henrietta Cordelia Ray's most well-known poems are her early ode to Abraham Lincoln and the sonnets from her 1910 book. These poems were often printed in other poetry collections in the early 1900s. In recent years, her work has been rediscovered and studied by scholars.
