COLLECTION GUIDES

1791-1892

Guide to the Microfilm Edition


Collection Summary

Creator: Channing, William Ellery, 1780-1842
Title: William Ellery Channing papers
Dates: 1791-1892
Physical Description: 5 microfilm reels
Microfilm Call Number: P-318
Repository:
Massachusetts Historical Society
1154 Boylston StreetBoston, MA 02215library@masshist.org

Abstract

This collection consists of the correspondence, financial records, sermons, diaries, and other personal papers of Unitarian minister William Ellery Channing.

Biographical Sketch

William Ellery Channing was a Unitarian clergyman, literary critic, author, and the leading spokesman for liberal religion of his generation.

Back to Top

Collection Description

This collection contains the personal correspondence, writings, and other papers of William Ellery Channing. The main body of the microfilm edition consists of the William Ellery Channing papers at the Massachusetts Historical Society, supplemented by letters and documents drawn from other MHS manuscript collections. Among the family members represented in the collection are Channing's mother Lucy Ellery Channing, his grandfather William Ellery, his wife Ruth Gibbs Channing, and his uncles Henry and Walter Channing. Other correspondents include Washington Allston, James G. Birney, John C. Calhoun, Catherine Codman, Ezra Stiles Gannett, John T. Kirkland, Horace Mann, Francis Parkman, Eloise Richards Payne, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Jonathan Phillips, Catharine Maria Sedgwick, Henry Dwight Sedgwick, Samuel E. Sewall, George Ticknor, Joseph Tuckerman, and members of the Gibbs family of Newport, R.I. Among the subjects discussed in Channing's correspondence and writings are: the American Unitarian Association, the Benevolent Fraternity of Churches, education, the Federal Street Church, Harvard University and the Divinity School there, aid for laboring people, the Elijah P. Lovejoy meeting at Faneuil Hall in 1837, the early peace movement, religion (including Unitarianism and religious controversies of the day), slavery and abolition, temperance, and 19th-century travel in Europe and the West Indies. Also included in this collection are sermons, lectures, and speeches; travel diaries, 1821-1830; and notes, correspondence, financial records, and other documents related to Channing's publications and the settlement of his estate.

Additional William Ellery Channing papers are drawn primarily from the Ezra Stiles Gannett papers and the Jonathan Phillips papers. Other collections represented include: the Appleton family papers, the George Bancroft papers, the Henry W. Bellows papers, the Samuel Cabot papers, the Hugh Upham Clark collection, the Caroline Wells Healey Dall papers, the Edward Everett papers, the Everett-Peabody family papers, the Guild Library, the Heath family papers, the Horace Mann collection, the Grenville H. Norcross autograph collection, the Harrison Gray Otis papers II, the Pemberton collection, the Quincy family papers, the Robie-Sewall family papers, the Sedgwick family papers, the Boston Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge papers III, the Thomas Wren Ward papers, the Alexander Calvin and Ellen Morton Washburn autograph collection, the R. C. Waterston autograph collection, and the Winthrop family papers.

All items are individually described in the MHS manuscript catalog.

Back to Top

Other Formats

Digital facsimiles of the William Ellery Channing papers are available on Nineteenth Century Collections Online: Religion, Spirituality, Reform and Society, a digital publication of Gale/Cengage. This digital resource is available at subscribing libraries; speak to your local librarian to determine if your library has access. This publication is not available in the MHS library.

Back to Top

Detailed Description of the Collection

Expand all

Listed below are all of the individual documents in this collection in the order in which they appear on the microfilm. All items are part of the William Ellery Channing papers unless otherwise indicated.

I. Undated correspondence

This series contains 124 undated letters and documents arranged into three alphabetical sequences: letters from William Ellery Channing, letters to William Ellery Channing, and letters about William Ellery Channing. Correspondents include Catherine Codman, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Joseph Tuckerman, Andrews Norton, Francis Parkman, and George Ticknor.

Close I. Undated correspondence
Back to Top

Preferred Citation

Microfilm edition of the William Ellery Channing papers, Massachusetts Historical Society.

Back to Top

Access Terms

This collection is indexed under the following headings in ABIGAIL, the online catalog of the Massachusetts Historical Society. Researchers desiring materials about related persons, organizations, or subjects should search the catalog using these headings.

Persons:

Channing family.
Channing, Henry, 1760-1840.
Channing, Lucy Ellery, 1752-1834.
Channing, Ruth Gibbs, 1778-1870.
Channing, Walter, 1757-1827.
Codman, Catherine.
Ellery, William, 1727-1820.
Peabody, Elizabeth Palmer, 1804-1894.
Sedgwick, Henry D. (Henry Dwight), 1785-1831.
Tuckerman, Joseph, 1778-1840.

Subjects:

Account books--1795-1798.
Boston (Mass.)--Church history.
College costs--Massachusetts--Boston.
Diaries--1821.
Diaries--1822.
Diaries--1830.
Europe--Description and travel--1800-1918.
Family history--1800-1849.
Santa Cruz (Calif.)--Description and travel.
Sermons--1802-1840.
Slavery and the church.
Teachers--Virginia--Richmond.
Unitarian churches--Clergy.
Unitarian churches--Massachusetts--Boston.
Unitarianism.
Voyages and travels--Diaries.

Materials Removed from the Collection

Photographs from this collection have been removed to the William Ellery Channing photographs (unprocessed). Photo. Coll. 500.85.

Back to Top

Prepared by Peter Drummey and Patrick Flynn, March 1982.

Revised 2 Feb. 2021

Encoded by Susan Martin, January 2008

Click the description headings to expand their contents, and click the red REQUEST buttons to add items to your request.

Click here to cancel