Walter Channing (April 15, 1786-July 20, 1876) was born, in Newport, Rhode Island, into a prestigious family. He earned his own reputation as Boston’s leading obstetrician, the first Professor of Midwifery at Harvard Medical School, and the first American physician to advocate the use of anesthesia in childbirth.…
Caroline Evans Veatch (April 17, 1870-October 4, 1953) was a modest widow who, because she was homebound, was never able to attend the Unitarian society she joined late in life. Her bequest transformed the congregation that inspired her and has sustained both the Unitarian Universalist Association and many other UU organizations.
Eliza Tupper Wilkes (October 8, 1844-February 5, 1917) was a circuit-riding preacher who started eleven Universalist and Unitarian churches in the American West. Among the first women ordained into the ministry, Wilkes worked with and mentored other liberal women ministers in the West.…
Peter Cooper (February 12, 1791-April 4, 1883), Unitarian inventor, entrepreneur, and college founder, was a real-life “rags to riches” hero whose love for humanity and deep religious convictions led him to establish the Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art, the first postsecondary institution in the United States to provide free education to the poor and to adults, including women.…
Rhys Williams (February 27, 1929-July 20, 2003), minister of the First Church in Boston for forty years, was a civic leader, active in the establishment and promotion of institutions for education, housing, and the care of the sick and elderly.
Rhys was born in San Francisco, California to Lucita Squier and Albert Rhys Williams.…
John Hassler Dietrich (1878-1957), minister for almost a quarter of a century at the First Unitarian Society in Minneapolis, Minnesota, was among the first Unitarian ministers to boldly preach that humanist thinking was the true foundation of religious liberalism.
Dolphus Skinner (May 18, 1800-October 2, 1869), a Universalist minister and editor, served the Universalist church in Utica, New York for over 40 years. His long ministry in provided stability during the rapid growth of Universalism in central New York. At the time of his death he was, according to his obituary, “undoubtedly the most popular [Universalist] preacher ever in Central New York.”…
Giovanni Giorgio Biandrata (or Blandrata) (1516-May 5, 1588), physician and counsel to the courts of Eastern Europe, brought the ideas of Michael Servetus and the Italian Radical reformers to the Reformations in Poland and Transylvania. He was an organizer of Reform and Unitarian churches in both countries and used his influence with the ruling families to protect the fledgling churches.
Maria Mitchell (August 1, 1818-June 28, 1889), the first American woman astronomer, was the first professor of Astronomy at Vassar College and the first director of Vassar’s observatory. Honored internationally, she was one of the most celebrated American scientists of the 19th century.…
Judith Sargent Murray (May 5, 1751-June 9, 1820), essayist, poet, and playwright, was the most prominent woman essayist of her day. She argued forcefully for improved female education and for women to be allowed a public voice. She was among the first Universalists in New England, a pioneer religious educator, and the wife of the distinguished Universalist preacher John Murray.
Jan (John) Kiszka (c.1552-1592) was a politician, magnate, patron and benefactor of Arianism in the 16th-century Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth.
Jan was the eldest son of Stanislaw Kiszka (d.1554), Palatine of Witebsk (wojewoda witebski) in today’s Eastern Belarus, and Princess Anna Radziwill (d.…
Curtis Williford Reese (September 3, 1887-June 5, 1961) was an educator, administrator, social activist, journalist, and Unitarian minister. He was a founder and president of the American Humanist Association, Secretary of the Western Unitarian Conference (WUC), and Dean of the Abraham Lincoln Centre, an integrated social and educational community organization in Chicago.