Born to a poor peasant family in East Prussia, she received little education and did not start writing poetry until around 1884.

Johanna Ambrosius was born on 3 August 1854 in Lengwethen, a village in East Prussia, the second of fourteen children of a craftsman.

Her poems were accompanied by her portrait and a picture of her home from the seventh edition, published by Ferdinand Beyer in Königsberg.

[1] In 1896, the book of poems was translated into English and first published in the United States, where Ambrosius was celebrated as full of exuberance, even as a "German Sappho".

[10] Soon after her "discovery", Ambrosius became acquainted, personally and through exchanges of letters, with notable writers of her time including Hermann Sudermann, Gerhart Hauptmann, Herman Grimm, Bruno Wille, and Heinrich Hart.

Participating in the debate over the merits of Ambrosius's work were Carl Busse, Theodor Fontane, Richard Weitbrecht [de], Ferdinand Avenarius, Otto Rühle, Arno Holz, Ludwig Goldstein, and Christian Morgenstern.

Ambrosius's best-known work was the 1884 poem "Mein Heimatland" with the opening line "They say all, you are not beautiful", which became famous as the Älteres/Erstes Ostpreußenlied (Older/First East Prussian Song).