Lee Cohen Harby (September 7, 1849 – October 21, 1918), also seen as Leah Cohen Harby, was an American writer on Southern and Jewish topics.
Early life Leah (or Lee) Cohen was born in Charleston, South Carolina,John William Leonard, Albert Nelson Marquis, eds., Who's who in America, Volume 3 (Marquis Who's Who 1903): 642. the daughter of Marx E. Cohen and Armida Harby Cohen.Nancy Baker Jones, "Lee Cohen Harby" Handbook of Texas Online (Texas State Historical Society). Her grandfather was Isaac Harby (1788–1828), a writer and leader in Southern Jewish society.Mary Ellen Henry, "Leah Cohen Harby" Jewish Women's Archive. Her sister Caroline Cohen Joachimsen was also a writer.Jacob Rader Marcus, The American Jewish Woman, 1654-1980 (KTAV Publishing 1981): 36.
Career Harby moved to Texas as a new bride. She wrote for local newspapers there, including an 1873 essay, "Christmas Before the War". Her 1883 essay, "On Women and Their Possibilities", encouraged Jewish women in particular to become educated and independent. She wrote often on Texas history subjects, in essays and stories for national periodicals, including "The Old Stone Fort at Nacogdoches" (1888), "The City of a Prince" (1888), "Texas Types and Contrasts" (1890),Lee Cohen Harby, "Texas Types and Contrasts" Harper's Magazine (July 1890). "The Earliest Texas" (1892), "Judy Robinson – Milliner" (1893), "The Tejas: Their Habits, Government, and Superstitions" (1894).Lee Cohen Harby, "The Tejas: Their Habits, Government, and Superstitions" American Historical Society annual report (1894): 63–82.Natalie Ornish, Pioneer Jewish Texans (Texas A&M University Press 2011): 236. By recent scholars' estimation, she was "one of the most widely-published women writers in nineteenth-century Texas.""Texas Women Writers and the Short Story" in Sylvia Ann Grider, Lou Halsell Rodenberger, eds., Let's Hear It: Stories by Texas Women Writers (Texas A&M University Press 2003): 21.
Harby also wrote poetry."They Write Poetry" Los Angeles Herald (December 25, 1892): 16. via California Digital Newspaper Collection She wrote lyrics for "Flag Song of Texas" for a contest in 1903, and won a cash prize when it became the official state flag song. She was a member of the United Daughters of the Confederacy and the Daughters of the American Revolution. She wrote poems to be read at United Confederate Veterans reunions, and was honored by that organization for her contributions. "I love everything Confederate until it is painful," she declared in a 1906 publication.Mildred Lewis Rutherford, The South in History and Literature: A Hand-book of Southern Authors, from the Settlement of Jamestown, 1607, to Living Writers (Franklin-Turner Company 1906): 246–248. She donated items to the Museum of the Confederacy in Richmond, Virginia.Catalogue of the Confederate Museum, Richmond, Va., 1898 (1898): 149, 152.
Personal life Lee Cohen married her first cousin once removed Jacob "Jack" de la Motta Harby in 1869. They had two children, Marx Edwin Harby and Lily Lee Harby, and lived in New York from 1890 to 1900. She was widowed in 1916 and she died in 1918, aged 69 years, in Charleston."Mrs. Lee Cohen Harby, Author" New York Times (October 22, 1918): 13. A few of her papers are archived at the University of Texas at Austin, Briscoe Center for American History;"A Guide to the Lee C. Harby Papers 1890" University of Texas Libraries. others are at the College of Charleston.Lee Cohen Harby papers, Special Collections, College of Charleston.Inventory of the Cohen, Emanuel, Moses, and Seixas family Papers, 1806–2005, Special Collections, College of Charleston.
There is a historical marker about Lee Cohen Harby in Charleston, placed by the Daughters of the American Revolution of South Carolina in 1924, for her "patriotic and untiring efforts".Lee Cohen Harby, Historical Marker Project.Lee Cohen Harby, Historical Marker Data Base.
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