DNAH Hymnal Collection: Home

The Dictionary of North American Hymnology (DNAH) is a decades-old project of The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada that has as its goal the indexing of all hymnals printed in North America to 1978. With its 5,000 hymnals and over 1 million hymn instances, the DNAH is now housed at Hymnary.org. The term "hymn" is used broadly, as a way to describe pieces of congregational song; the DNAH is not tied to any denomination or religion in its coverage. Through an NEH grant, Hymnary.org has digitized over 2,000 public domain hymnals, and in addition to the DNAH data also offers sound recordings, scores, arrangements, page scans, and more.

The DNAH began under the guidance of Henry Wilder Foote with the vision of being the American equivalent of John D. Julian's Dictionary of Hymnology. In 1952, the editorship fell to Leonard Ellinwood, head of the humanities section at the Library of Congress, and his assistant Elizabeth Lockwood. Upon Ellinwood's retirement, the DNAH database moved to Oberlin college in 1984 under the care of Mary Louise Van Dyke. Under the guidance of Paul Powell, the DNAH data was keyed in and published on CD-ROM in 2003. The CD-ROM was then converted to a relational format by Bill Clemmons with funding from Point Loma Nazarene University and the Wesleyan Center for 21st Century Studies. The DNAH data was added to Hymnary.org on July 8, 2009.

The Hymn Society in the United States and Canada, founded in 1922, has as its mission to encourage, promote, and enliven congregational song. Visit its website for more information about its workshops, events, classes, peer-reviewed journal, and more!