Collection Description

This collection consists of over 200 documents, primarily letters, containing the autographs of eminent Unitarians and other liberal religious thinkers from the United States and abroad. Among the individuals represented are politicians, authors, scientists, reformers, clergymen, scholars, educators, businessmen, and judges. Included are autographs of John Adams, Louisa May Alcott, Susan B. Anthony, William Ellery Channing, James Freeman Clarke, Charles Darwin, Charles Dickens, Dorothea Dix, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Margaret Fuller, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., Thomas Jefferson, Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Horace Mann, Harriet Martineau, Theodore Parker, Francis Parkman, Elizabeth Palmer Peabody, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Daniel Webster, and many others.

Although the papers span four centuries, the bulk of the material dates from the 19th century. Among the earliest items are a letter from Vice President John Adams to Secretary of War Henry Knox, 1791, and an 1801 "sea letter," or ship's passport, signed by both Thomas Jefferson and Levi Lincoln. Other highlights include a rare introspective letter from Transcendentalist author Margaret Fuller to Mary Peabody, later Mrs. Horace Mann; a 34-page handwritten account by Harriet Martineau of her transatlantic voyage in 1836; a letter from educator Elizabeth Palmer Peabody about her historical works; and a few lines by Ralph Waldo Emerson from his poem "Voluntaries," written to commemorate the 54th Massachusetts Regiment's attack on Fort Wagner, S.C.

The collection also contains articles, booklets, programs, posters, and other printed material related to famous Unitarians, Unitarianism, and other religious subjects. Included are books by Joseph Priestley and Charles William Wendte.