This Day in Unitarian Universalist History October 21

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1772 – Samuel Taylor Coleridge was born in Devon, England. Raised partly as a “charity boy” in an institution, he was a minister’s child with an inquisitive mind. In early life, he was a Unitarian and often preached in Unitarian chapels, but he eventually became an Anglican. Coleridge was a gifted poet who was instrumental in the Romantic movement in England and wrote theological and political works as well. Among his most famous poems are “Rime of the Ancient Mariner” and “Kubla Khan.” Samuel Taylor Coleridge had a significant influence on Transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson.

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This Day in Unitarian Universalist History October 20

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1880 – Lydia Maria Child, an ardent Unitarian, feminist, and abolitionist, died at age 78. Born in Medford, Massachusetts, she joined the church served by her Unitarian minister brother, Convers Francis, in Watertown, Massachusetts. Child found success as a popular writer, producing a romantic historical novel and practical household manuals. She became vice president of the Women’s Anti-Slavery Convention of New York and edited the National Slavery Standard. Later she turned to religious issues and published The Progress of Religious Ideas through Successive Ages, which contended that all religions had sacred insights. She also espoused women’s suffrage and the cause of Native Americans. Read more about Lydia Maria Child at: www.HarvardSquareLibrary.org – the digital library of Unitarian Universalism.

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This Day in Unitarian Universalist History October 19

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1735 – John Adams was born in Braintree, Massachusetts. He became a prominent lawyer and attacked the Stamp Act in 1765. He helped to draft the Declaration of Independence. Adams also drafted the Massachusetts Constitution. He was vice president under George Washington and succeeded him as president. He was a member of First Parish (Unitarian) in Quincy, Massachusetts, where he is buried with his wife, son, and daughter-in-law, under the care of the National Park Service. Adams died at home on July 4, 1826, only a few hours after the death of Thomas Jefferson.

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Read more at: www.HarvardSquareLibrary.org – the digital library of Unitarian Universalism.

This Day in Unitarian Universalist History October 18

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1796 – Hosea Ballou II was born in Guilford, Vermont. A grandnephew of Hosea Ballou, he wrote Ancient History of Universalism (1829). Before becoming a minister, Ballou was a schoolteacher in Roxbury and Medford, Massachusetts. He worked with Horace Mann as a major advocate for public education. Ballou was president of Tufts College from 1854 to 1861. Read more about Hosea Ballou II at: www.HarvardSquareLibrary.org – the digital library of Unitarian Universalism.

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This Day in Unitarian Universalist History October 17

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1792 – Sir John Bowring was born in Exeter, England. He was a writer and linguist who worked as a merchant and public servant. He was also a close friend of the economist Jeremy Bentham. As a member of Parliament, he promoted free trade. He also sponsored legislation to provide equal rights to all religions. Bowring was an active Unitarian layman and foreign secretary to the British and Foreign Unitarian Association.

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This Day in Unitarian Universalist History October 16

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1863 – Joseph Austen Chamberlain was born, the oldest son of Joseph Chamberlain. He followed the Unitarian family tradition in religion and politics. He was chancellor of the exchequer, secretary for India, and a member of Lloyd George’s War Cabinet, Lord Privy Seal, leader of the House of Commons. King George V knighted him in 1925, the same year that he shared the Nobel Peace Prize with Charles Gates Dawes for negotiating the Locarno Pact.

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This Day in Unitarian Universalist History October 15

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1889 – Manchester College, an academy to train Dissenters from the Church of England for the learned professions, opened in Oxford. Its main function was to train Unitarian ministers, though it had no official connection with the denomination. Now a constituent college of Oxford University, its charter from Queen Elizabeth II requires that the chaplain of the college be Unitarian, and that Unitarian ministerial students be trained at no cost.

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Read more at: www.HarvardSquareLibrary.org – the digital library of Unitarian Universalism.

This Day in Unitarian Universalist History October 14

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1894 – Edward Estlin Cummings (e.e. cummings) was born in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The son of Edward Cummings, minister of the South Congregational Church (Unitarian) in Boston from 1908 to 1926, Cummings received his B.A. and M.A. degrees from Harvard University and then volunteered for duty in France during World War I, where he was arrested for corresponding with the anarchist Emma Goldman and imprisoned for treason. After the war he took up writing and painting. His poetry stressed individuality over modern conformist living. Read more about Edward Estlin Cummings at: www.HarvardSquareLibrary.org – the digital library of Unitarian Universalism.

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This Day in Unitarian Universalist History October 13

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1841 – Thomas Lamb Eliot was born in St. Louis, Missouri, the son of William Greenleaf Eliot Jr. Due to an eye injury he suffered as a student at Washington University, materials often had to be read to him. Nevertheless, Eliot graduated from Harvard Divinity School and headed to a frontier town of 6,000 inhabitants — Portland, Oregon — and entered the ministry of its new Unitarian church. He built up the congregation, founded Reed College, and was a civic leader with great impact on the cultural and political development of Portland. Read more about Thomas Lamb Eliot at: www.HarvardSquareLibrary.org – the digital library of Unitarian Universalism.

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This Day in Unitarian Universalist History October 12

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1909 – Dorothy Livesay was born in Winnipeg, Canada. She was a leading Canadian poet of the 20th century. In 1928, she published her first collection of poems, Green Pitcher. She joined the Communist party and worked among the unemployed. She and her husband, Duncan Macnair, joined the Unitarian Church in Vancouver, British Columbia. She earned her M.Ed. from the University of British Columbia and a Ph.D. in literature from the University of Waterloo. Read more about Dorothy Livesay at: www.HarvardSquareLibrary.org – the digital library of Unitarian Universalism.

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