Dictionary of
Unitarian &
Universalist
Biography
Dennis Channing Landis (named for William Ellery Channing) grew up in the Unitarian Church of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Over the past two decades, he has been closely involved with the restoration of the 1771 meeting house that is home to the Unitarian Universalist Society in Brooklyn, Connecticut. He was for six years president of that Society and serves as its archivist. A long-term project is the history of the Brooklyn congregation, the only Congregational church body in Connecticut to accept Unitarian theology.
Landis was for 20 years editor of a bibliographical project that produced the six-volume reference series, European Americana: A Chronological Guide to Books Printed in Europe Relating to the Americas, 1493-1776 [i.e. 1750]. He is the Curator of European Books in the John Carter Brown Library, a special collection of early Americana at Brown University. He studied rare book bibliography at Columbia University and earned a Ph.D. in German literature from the University of Connecticut, where he also taught for three years. His research interests range from European intellectual history in the 17th century to American religious history of the 19th. He is married to Ann Phelps Barry, a librarian and church musician.
Articles:
Celia Burleigh
Samuel J. May
