Emelie Tracy Y. Swett Parkhurst

Emelie Tracy Y. Swett (married surname, Parkhurst; 9 March 1863 – 21 April 1892) was an American poet and author.

Emelie Tracy Y. Swett was born in San Francisco, California, 9 March, 1863, and died there 21 April, 1892. She was the daughter of Professor John Swett, a prominent educator of California, known as "The Father of Pacific Coast Education" and the author of many educational works, which were in wide use in the US, England, France, Norway, Sweden, Denmark and Australia. Both Professor Swett and his wife were inclined to literature. Her grandfather, Frederick Palmer Tracy, was well known during Abraham Lincoln's administration as a writer and an orator.

Her education was partly received in the public schools, and partly at home with various tutors in modern and ancient languages, literature, music and mathematics. Her first published story, written when she was 16, won the first prize of a gold watch, offered by the San Francisco Chronicle for the best short story contributed by boys and girls. She went, after graduation, to Europe and spent some time in France.

Returning to California, Swett was a successful teacher in the kindergarten schools of San Francisco. She afterwards taught vocal and instrumental music, Greek, French and German in a young ladies' college in Eureka. She left there to go abroad in search of health, and while away, acted as correspondent to several eastern and western papers. The first earnest literary work done by her consisted of translations of French and German scientific works and historical novels for a New York City firm which has now passed out of existence. Later, at the urgent request of the editor of the Overland Monthly, then Charles Howard Shinn, she wrote a number of short stories, which were very favorably received. She served for a time as private secretary to a San Francisco publisher, and while in that position, she wrote and published much in prose and verse.

Swett became the wife of John W. Parkhurst, of the Bank of California, in 1889, but retained her maiden name for her professional work. Soon after her marriage, she organized the Pacific Coast Literary Bureau, and out of it grew the Pacific Coast Woman's Press Association, and she served as corresponding secretary of the latter organization. She wrote much in the editorial line, and her literary work includes everything from Greek, French, and German translations to the production of finished poems of high merit. She wrote a biography of Charles Edward de Villers in French and English. She dramatized Helen Hunt Jackson's novel, Ramona. The play concerns a story of discrimination against indigenous people in southern California.

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