author
Elizabeth H. Jocelyn (Elizabeth Hannah Jocelyn) Cleaveland
1824–1911
A 19th-century American poet remembered for verse that questions religious division with warmth and moral clarity. Her best-known work, No Sect in Heaven, kept circulating for decades and still finds readers today.
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About the author
Born in 1824 and dying in 1911, Elizabeth H. Jocelyn Cleaveland wrote devotional and reflective poetry in the 19th century. Library and public-domain records identify her as Elizabeth Hannah Jocelyn Cleaveland, and her most widely known work is No Sect in Heaven, first published in the early 1860s and later reissued in expanded form as No Sects in Heaven, and Other Poems.
Her writing is closely associated with religious thought, especially the idea that human kindness matters more than sectarian labels. That theme helped make No Sect in Heaven her signature piece, and the poem continued to be reprinted and preserved by libraries, archives, and Project Gutenberg.
Although not a widely documented literary celebrity, Cleaveland has remained visible through the survival of her books and a portrait preserved on Wikimedia Commons. She stands as one of many 19th-century writers whose work lived on because readers found comfort and conviction in it.