Harkness, Georgia Elma

Harkness, Georgia Elma (1891–1974) educator, author; born in Harkness, N.Y. Raised on a farm, she graduated from Cornell University (1912), taught high school for several years and took a Ph.D. from Brown in 1923. She taught philosophy and religion at Elmira College, N.Y., from 1923–37, meanwhile turning out books that developed her evangelical liberal ideas. Holy Flame, the first of her several volumes of devotional poetry, appeared in 1935. She later taught at Mount Holyoke and at the Pacific School of Religion in Berkeley, Calif. Retiring to Claremont, Calif., in 1961, she continued to publish a book a year until her death. Among her 38 books was The Dark Night of The Soul (1945), in which she wrote about the religious meaning of suffering.