Sessions, Kate Olivia
Kate Olivia (Ophelia) Sessions chose a very unusual profession for a woman in 1885. Her love of nature, of gardening and flowers caused her to abandon teaching and take up the propagation of plants as a commercial nurseryman.
Biography
Adler, Margot
Margot Susanna Adler (April 16, 1946-July 28, 2014) was a speaker, lecturer, writer, and public radio reporter. A complex woman with wide-ranging interests, she was willing to go wherever her heart and mind led her, even to a fascination with vampires in later years.…
Reid , Eliza Anne McIntosh
Eliza Anne McIntosh Reid (October 30, 1841-January 8, 1926) was a social reformer, women’s activist, and a leader in the movement to gain access to higher education for Canadian women. A life long Unitarian, her contributions would be continued and expanded by her daughter, Helen R.…
Thomas, William
William Thomas (April 7, 1834-December 11, 1879) has been called “the founder of modern Unitarianism in Wales”. He was the minister at the Llwynrhydowen church, which, founded in 1733 as the first Arminian church in Wales, became an anchor of Unitarian religion in a small and isolated region of inland West Wales lying near the River Teifi, which separates Cardiganshire and Carmarthenshire.…
Tuwhare, Hone
Hone Tuwhare (October, 1922-January 16, 2008) was one of the leading poets of the twentieth-century. Building on his Māori and Scottish background, his poetry reflected, critiqued, and celebrated New Zealand culture and its people. He was a social justice advocate, a defender of the working class, and an advocate for the Māori.
Woolley, Smith Rensselaer and Clarence Mott
Smith Rensselaer Woolley
Smith Rensselaer Woolley (1840-March 7, 1886) was the son of Universalist minister Edward Mott Woolley and the brother of Lucia Fidelia Woolley Gillette, one of the first women ordained to the Universalist ministry. He was the father of Clarence Mott Woolley, a trustee and benefactor of St.
Gillette, Lucia Fidelia Woolley
Lucia Fidelia Woolley Gillette (April 8, 1827-October 14, 1905) was one of the first women to be ordained to the Universalist ministry in the United States and probably the first ordained woman to preach in Canada. As a child she assisted her father, Edward Mott Woolley as he traveled his Universalist ministry circuit in New York.…
Eliot, Thomas Dawes
Thomas Dawes Eliot (March 20, 1808-June 14, 1870) was a renowned Massachusetts attorney and a passionate progressive politician in the years leading up to and following the Civil War. A dedicated and capable Unitarian church leader, he served as president of both the National Conference of Unitarian Churches and the American Unitarian Association.…
Cassara, Ernest
Ernest Cassara (June 5, 1925-April 10, 2015) was a Unitarian and a Universalist minister, a scholar of American Universalism, and a professor of history. He taught at Tufts University, Goddard College, Albert Schweitzer College, and then for twenty years at George Mason University.
Hansen, Owen Glenbrook
Owen Glenbrook Hansen (September 24, 1923-August 30, 2006) was born into a family with a strong tradition of independent thought: Pacifism and freethought on his father’s side; Unitarianism and vegetarianism on his mother’s. Raised on a farm in rural New Zealand during the Great Depression, he became proficient in a broad range of agricultural and mechanical pursuits.…
Adams, Charles Francis, Jr.
Charles Francis Adams Jr. (May 27, 1835-May 20, 1915) was a lawyer, writer, railroad regulator, arbitrator, journalist, railroad president, and soldier. Reared a Unitarian, his beliefs changed as he took stock of his life after the Civil War.
Higginson, Thomas Wentworth
Thomas Wentworth Higginson (December 22, 1823-May 9, 1911) was one of the most distinguished and multi-talented Unitarians of the nineteenth-century, yet few people today are aware of his prominence or the extent of his interests and achievements. Minister, author, activist, lecturer, soldier, naturalist, physical fitness enthusiast—he was all of these things and more.…