Introduction

Biography

Helen was the daugh­ter of Ben­son Sny­der and Har­ri­et Mil­lar, and wife of Clar­ence Dick­in­son, or­gan­ist at New York Ci­ty’s Brick Pres­by­ter­ian Church for half a cen­tu­ry (mar­ried 1904).

She was edu­cat­ed at Queens Uni­ver­si­ty, Kings­ton, On­tar­io, Ca­na­da; served as Dean of Wo­men at State Col­lege, Penn­syl­van­ia; and was the first wo­man to re­ceive a PhD from Hei­del­berg Uni­ver­si­ty in Ger­ma­ny. This was at a time when wo­men were not ge­ne­ral­ly wel­comed in gra­du­ate phi­lo­so­phy class­es.

She was a well known ly­ri­cist, trans­lat­or, and art his­to­ri­an who fre­quent­ly lec­tured at Un­ion Se­mi­na­ry in New York Ci­ty.

She and Clar­ence wrote hun­dreds of cho­rales and an­thems for church choirs.

Works

• Excursions in Mu­sic­al His­to­ry, 1917
• Antiphons: A Col­lect­ion of Cho­ral Re­spons­es or Short An­thems Ar­ranged with Scrip­tur­al Read­ings, 1920
• Thoreau’s Phi­lo­so­phy of Life, with Spe­cial Con­si­der­ation of the In­flu­ence of Hin­doo Phi­lo­so­phy
• The Tech­nique and Art of Or­gan Play­ing
• German Mas­ters of Art
• The Choir Loft and the Pul­pit, 1943