John Sullivan Dwight (May 13, 1813-September 5, 1893) made important contributions to the Transcendentalist movement. A dedicated member of the Brook Farm commune while it lasted, he was America’s first influential classical music critic.
Born May 13, 1813, in Boston, Dwight graduated from Harvard College in 1832.
John Howland Lathrop (June 6, 1880-August 20, 1967) was a distinguished Unitarian minister, social activist and peace advocate. He said in 1936, “Human associations are all precious, but none reaches as deep as the gatherings together in a church, where we share with one another the holiest experiences of life, and strive to fan the flame of the spirit within to an ever brighter light.”
Augustus Graham (baptized April 15, 1776-November 27, 1851) was a manufacturer, social activist and philanthropist. Because of his name change and the mystery surrounding him, he has always had a certain appeal. Now with the strong gay rights movement, there is more interest in him because he left his wife and children (though he continued to support them) to live for decades with a man whom he called his “brother.”
Jesse Babcock Ferguson (January 19, 1819-September 3, 1870), a renowned orator and minister in the Antebellum South, converted to universalist and unitarian beliefs. His conversion created turmoil in his own large Nashville church and throughout the region.
Angus de Mille Cameron (June 9, 1913-November 23, 1996) was one of a small group of Canadian ministers whose introduction into Canada in the 1940s of the topics and issues promoted in the United States under the rubric of Unitarian Advance, began a period of revitalization for the Canadian Unitarian churches.
John Cordner (July 3, 1816-June 22, 1894) was unquestionably the most influential figure in setting the tone for the emerging Unitarian movement in nineteenth-century Canada. Not only was he skilled at presenting his views effectively, but during his 35-year ministry in Montreal, then the leading city in Canada by a wide margin, he attracted a congregation largely composed of persons prominent in the business and professional life of the city and country.
Ephraim Peabody (March 22, 1807-November 28, 1856), an early Unitarian missionary to the (then) western United States and later a prominent and beloved minister of King’s Chapel in Boston, was widely recognized as an insightful and inspiring preacher. His theology of character was a central concept for antebellum Unitarian moralists.
The Universalist society in Oxford, Massachusetts, one of the earliest Universalist churches in America, hosted the conventions which led to the creation of the Universalist denomination. The church was founded and largely led by members of the extended Davis family, some two dozen siblings and first cousins, all grandchildren of Samuel Davis of Roxbury, Massachusetts (1681-1760) who settled in Oxford in 1729.
Henry Solly (November 13, 1813-February 27, 1903), British Unitarian minister and social reformer, was one of the most remarkable social innovators of his time. He was the instigator and founder of three important social organisations in Britain—Working Men’s Clubs, the Charity Organisation Society and the Garden City movement—that had a significant influence on the provision made for the working classes in late Victorian Britain.
Albert Frederick Ziegler (March 29 1911-May 21, 1991), Universalist minister, theologian, and denominational official, played a significant part in redefining Universalism during the two decades leading to the merger of the Universalist Church of America and the American Unitarian Association in 1961.
Béla Bartók (March 25, 1881-September 26, 1945), the greatest Hungarian composer, was one of the most significant musicians of the twentieth century. He shared with his friend Zoltán Kodály, another leading Hungarian composer, a passion for ethnomusicology. His music was invigorated by the themes, modes, and rhythmic patterns of the Hungarian and other folk music traditions he studied, which he synthesized with influences from his contemporaries into his own distinctive style.
Charles Francis Potter (October 28, 1885-October 4, 1962) was a Unitarian minister, theologian and author who changed, over half a century, from an evangelical Baptist to a radical Humanist. Such a transformation reflects remarkable openness to new ideas, flexibility of personality, and capacity for intellectual and theological growth.