James Luther Adams (November 12, 1901-July 26, 1994) was a Unitarian parish minister, social activist, journal editor, distinguished scholar, translator and editor of major German theologians, prolific author, and divinity school professor for more than forty years. Adams decisively shaped the minds of hundreds of students in preparation for the liberal ministry, and other scholarly professions as well.
George Willis Cooke (April 23, 1848-April 30, 1923), born in Comstock, Michigan, was a Unitarian minister, writer, editor, and lecturer best known now for his landmark history of the Unitarian movement in the 19th century and for his work on transcendentalist writers and publications.
Harriet Martineau (June 12, 1802-June 27, 1876), a pioneering British journalist and writer, grew up Unitarian and was for a time a Unitarian apologist. A free trade advocate, she provided influential support for economic reform in Britain. The observational methodology she developed traveling in America was a forerunner of modern sociology.
Arthur Foote (March 5, 1853-April 4, 1937), Unitarian church musician and influential music teacher, was a leading member of a group of composers known as the Boston Six or the Second New England School. Together, the Six-John Knowles Paine, Horatio Parker, George Chadwick, Edward MacDowell, Amy Beach, and Arthur Foote-wrote the first substantial body of indigenous concert hall, or “classical,” music in America.
Hosea Ballou (April 30, 1771-June 7, 1852) was the most influential of the preachers in the second generation of the Universalist movement. His book, A Treatise on Atonement, radically altered the thinking of his colleagues in the ministry and their congregations.
Frances Wayland Wood (February 13, 1903-August 22, 1975) was a lay professional who dedicated her life to liberal religious education. She helped to renovate Unitarian Sunday School materials in the mid-twentieth century and worked as consultant to Unitarian churches across North America.
Abigail Adams Eliot (October 9, 1892-October 29, 1992) was a pioneer of the nursery school movement. She is best known for her work with young children and in teaching other people to work with young children.
As her name suggests, she was a member of two of the most illustrious Unitarian families of New England: the Adamses and the Eliots.
Frederic Henry Hedge (December 12, 1805-August 21, 1890) was a Unitarian minister, an early Transcendentalist leader, a historical theologian, a German scholar and translator, and a Harvard professor. Born in Cambridge, Massachusetts, the son of Harvard professor Levi and Mary (Kneeland) Hedge.
James Relly (c.1722-April 25, 1778) was, as a young British minister, one a sizable group of Methodist preachers, including George Whitefield and John Wesley, whose itinerant preaching initiated a sweeping revival in large parts of Great Britain during the mid-18th century.
Edith Blackwell Holden (September 26, 1871-April 6, 1920) was a British artist and art teacher, known in her time as an illustrator of children’s books. Much influenced by the Arts and Crafts movement, she specialized in painting animals.