Edvard Grieg (June 15, 1843-September 4, 1907), considered Norway’s greatest composer, was the first to create an internationally celebrated body of musical works inspired by the folk-heritage and culture of Norway. Although most of his compositions were solo songs and short pieces for the piano, he contributed a few enduring Romantic-era classics to the orchestral and chamber repertoires.
Amos Bronson Alcott (November 29, 1799-March 4, 1888), educator, philosopher, utopian, and visionary, ran the progressive Temple School in Boston, founded the Fruitlands community in Harvard, Massachusetts, and led many public Socratic “conversations.” Although he belonged to no church, Alcott was influential both in the Transcendentalist wing of Unitarianism and in the Free Religion movement which followed.
Emily Howard Jennings Stowe (May 1, 1831-April 30, 1903), a path-breaking Canadian woman physician and suffragist, led campaigns to provide women access to medical schools and other professional education. Her efforts led to the organization of the woman’s movement in Canada and to the foundation of a medical college for women.
Thomas Handasyd Perkins (December 15, 1764-January 11, 1854) was a successful China trade merchant, a philanthropist, an important Boston Federalist, a leader in the cultural life of Boston, and the founding patron of the world-renowned Perkins School for the Blind. He was a faithful member of the congregation of the Federal Street Church during the ministries of Jeremy Belknap, William Ellery Channing, and Ezra Stiles Gannett.…
Henry Whitney Bellows (June 11, 1814-January 30, 1882) was minister of the First Congregational Church of New York City (now the Unitarian Church of All Souls), 1838-82. During the Civil War he was president of the United States Sanitary Commission. In the course of traveling for the Sanitary Commission he visited a great many Unitarian churches and recognized that Unitarian congregations’ traditionally informal modes of cooperation no longer met the needs of a fast-changing American society.…
Dana McLean Greeley (July 5, 1908-June 13, 1986), a Unitarian minister, peace activist, and civil rights leader, was the last president of the American Unitarian Association (AUA) and the founding president of the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA).
Dana was born in Lexington, Massachusetts into a longtime Unitarian family.
Raymond Bennett Bragg (October 10, 1902-February 15, 1979), a Unitarian minister and civic leader, played a key role in the making of the Humanist Manifesto and served as Director of the Unitarian Service Committee during the years following World War II.…
Caroline Wells Healey Dall (June 22, 1822-December 17, 1912), author, journalist, lecturer and champion of women’s rights, was a Unitarian community service worker, minister’s wife and lay preacher. She left valuable memoirs of her elders in the Transcendentalist movement and was heir to the mantle of Margaret Fuller as spokesperson for woman’s access to education and employment.
Johannes Abraham Christoffel Fagginger Auer (August 6, 1882-March 3, 1964) was a Unitarian minister, author, professor of Church History and of the Philosophy of Religion at the Tufts College School of Religion, and Parkman Professor of Theology at the Harvard Divinity School.
Ezra Stiles Gannett (May 4, 1801-August 26, 1871) was a prominent Unitarian minister, editor, and a founder of the American Unitarian Association (AUA). He was the colleague pastor, and successor, to William Ellery Channing at the Federal Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts.
William Ellery Channing (April 7, 1780-October 2, 1842), minister of the Federal Street Church in Boston, Massachusetts, 1803-42, was a spokesman during the Unitarian controversy for those liberal—or Unitarian—churches within Massachusetts’ Standing Order of churches. His published sermons, lighting a path between orthodoxy and infidelity, were widely influential abroad as well as throughout the United States.…
Joseph Chamberlain (July 8, 1836-July 2, 1914), a British industrialist, reformer, and statesman, was a key cabinet minister in Liberal and Conservative governments. In his early political career he was the chief founder of what is known as the ‘gas and water socialism’ movement in local government which improved the provision of utilities throughout Britain.