Unitarian and Universalist Women

Many Unitarian and Universalist women were among the activists who worked for womens rights; others were leaders in the arts, humanities, politics and other fields. Â  The list below is fairly extensive and includes women from before the Unitarian and Universalist movements merged as well as afterwards, and also includes some women from neighboring movements including Ethical Culture. Listed in order of their birth years. American unless otherwise indicated. Anne Bradstreet 1612-1672 Nonconformist poet, writer; descendents include Unitarians William Ellery Channing, Wendell Phillips, Oliver Wendell Holmes Anna Laetitia Aiken Barbauld 1743-1825 Unitarian (British) activist, poet Judith Sargent Murray 1751-1820 Universalist poet and author; wrote essay on feminism: On the Equality of the Sexes in 1790 (Rossi, 1973) Mary Wollstonecraft 1759-1797 Unitarian; married Unitarian minister author, wrote Vindication of the Rights of Woman in 1792) and Maria or the Wrongs of Woman; mother of Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley, author. Mary Moody Emerson 1774-1863 Unitarian writer; many of her unpublished writings foreshadow the ideas of her nephew, Ralph Waldo Emerson Maria Cook 1779-1835 Universalist jailed after preaching Universalism Lucy Barnes 1780-1809 Universalist Universalist writer, poet Eliza Lee Cabot Follen 1787-1860 Unitarian childrens author, abolitionist; she, with husband Charles Follen, Harvard German instructor, introduced the Christmas tree custom to America Eliza Farrar 1791-1870 Quaker, Unitarian childrens author, abolitionist Lucretia Mott 1793-1880 Quaker, Free Religious Association reformer: abolition, feminism, peace, temperance, liberal religion; cousin of Phebe Hanaford (also on this list) Frederika Bremer 1801-1865 Unitarian (Swedish) novelist, feminist, pacifist Harriet Martineau 1802-1876 British Unitarian writer, social critic, journalist, feminist Lydia Maria Child 1802-1880 Unitarian author, abolitionist, reformer; wrote An Appeal in Favor of That Class of Americans Called Africans and Over the River and Through the Woods Dorothea Dix 1802-1887 Unitarian mental health reformer, prison reformer, poet Elizabeth Palmer Peabody 1804-1894 Unitarian, Transcendentalist (teacher, author, reformer; sister to Mary Peabody Mann and Sophia Peabody Hawthorne (both also on this list); close associate of William Ellery Channing Sarah Flower Adams 1805-1848 Unitarian (British) hymn writer: Nearer My God to Thee Mary Tyler Peabody Mann 1806-1887 Unitarian educator; sister to Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and Sophia Peabody Hawthorne (both on this list), married to Horace Mann Maria Weston Chapman 1806-1885 Unitarian abolitionist Mary Carpenter 1807-1877 Unitarian (British) abolitionist, teacher, juvenile justice reformer Sophia Peabody Hawthorne 1809-1871 Unitarian author and writer; sister to Elizabeth Parker Peabody and Mary Peabody Mann (both also on this list), married to Nathaniel Hawthorne Fanny Kemble 1809-1893 Unitarian (British) poet, Shakespearean actress; author of Journal of a Residence on a Georgian Plantation in 1838-39 Margaret Fuller 1810-1850 Unitarian, Transcendentalist American writer, journalist, and philosopher; friend of Ralph Waldo Emerson Elizabeth Gaskell 1810-1865 Unitarian writer, reformer, wife of Unitarian minister William Gaskell Ellen Sturgis Hooper 1812-1848 Transcendentalist Unitarian poet, sister of Caroline Sturgis Tappan (also on this list) Elizabeth Cady Stanton 1815-1902 Unitarian suffragist, organizer, writer, co-author of The Womans Bible, mother of Harriot Stanton Blatch (also on this list) Lydia Moss Bradley 1816-1908 Unitarian and Universalist educator, philanthropist, founded Bradley University Charlotte Saunders Cushman 1816-1876 Unitarian actor Lucy N. Colman 1817-1906 Universalist abolitionist, feminist, freethinker Lucy Stone 1818-1893 Unitarian feminist, suffragist, abolitionist; married Henry Brown Blackwell whose sisters were Elizabeth Blackwell and Emily Blackwell (both on this list) and whose brother Samuel Blackwell married Antoinette Brown Blackwell (also on this list); mother of Alice Stone Blackwell (also on this list) Sallie Holley 1818-1893 Unitarian abolitionist, educator Maria Mitchell 1818-1889 Unitarian astronomer Caroline Sturgis Tappan 1819-1868 Transcendentalist Unitarian poet, childrens author, sister of Ellen Sturgis Hooper (also on this list) Julia Ward Howe 1819-1910 Unitarian, Free Religious Association writer, poet, abolitionist, social reformer; author of Battle Hymn of the Republic; promoter of Mothers Day for Peace; mother of Laura E. Richards and married to Samuel Gridley Howe, founder of the Perkins School for the Blind, researcher Lydia Pinkham 1819-1883 Universalist (eclectic) patent medicine inventor, businesswoman, advertising writer, advice columnist Florence Nightingale 1820-1910 British Unitarian nurse; founded nursing as a modern profession; mathematician: invented the pie chart Mary Ashton Rice Livermore 1820-1905 lecturer,suffragist, temperance advocate, helped organize Civil War Sanitary Commission Susan Brownell Anthony 1820-1906 Unitarian and Quaker reformer, suffragist) Alice Cary1820-1871 Universalist author, poet, abolitionist, suffragist; sister of Phoebe Cary (also on this list) Clara Barton 1821-1912 Universalist American Red Cross founder Elizabeth Blackwell 1821-1910 Unitarian and Episcopalian physician, sister of Emily Blackwell, sister of Samuel Blackwell who was married to Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and of Henry Blackwell, married to Lucy Stone (Emily Blackwell, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and Lucy Stone are on this list) Caroline Wells Healey Dall 1822-1912 Unitarian reformer, author Frances Power Cobbe 1822-1904 Unitarian (British) feminist, anti-vivisectionist Elizabeth Cabot Cary Agassiz 1822-1907 Unitarian scientist, author, educator, first president of Radcliffe College; married to Louis Agassiz Sarah Hammond Palfrey 1823-1914 writer; daughter of John Gorham Palfrey Phoebe Cary 1824-1871 Universalist poet, abolitionist, suffragist; sister of Alice Cary (also on this list) Ednah Dow Littlehale Cheney 1824-1904 Universalist, Unitarian, Free Religious Association civil rights activist, suffragist, editor, speaker Antoinette Brown Blackwell 1825-1921 Congregational and Unitarian minister minister, author, lecturer: possibly the first woman ordained as a Protestant minister in the US by a recognized denomination; later married Samuel Blackwell, brother of Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell and of Henry Blackwell who was married to Lucy Stone (Elizabeth and Emily Blackwell and Lucy Stone are on this list) Frances Ellen Watkins Harper 1825-1911 Unitarian writer, poet, abolitionist, feminist, temperance advocate Emily Blackwell 1826-1910 Unitarian physician, sister of Elizabeth Blackwell, of Samuel Blackwell who was married to Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and of Henry Blackwell who was married to Lucy Stone (Lucy Stone, Elizabeth Blackwell, and Antoinette brown Blackwell are on this list) Matilda Joslyn Gage 1826-1898 Unitarian suffragist, reformer; her daughter Maud married L. Frank Baum, author of The Wizard of Oz. Gage retained her membership in the Baptist church; later became a Theosophist. [picture] Maria Cummins 1827-1866 Unitarian author Barbara Bodichon 1827-1891 Unitarian (British) artist, landscape watercolorist; writer, cofounder of Griton college; feminist activist Phebe Ann Coffin Hanaford 1829-1921 Universalist minister, author, poet, suffragist; cousin of Lucretia Mott (also on this list) Abigail May Williams 1829-1888 Emily Dickinson 1830-1886 Transcendentalist poet; Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Unitarian minister, was an important figure in her career Helen Hunt Jackson 1830-1885 Transcendentalist author; proponent of Indian rights; no church connection as an adult Louisa May Alcott 1832-1888 Transcendentalist author, poet; best known for Little Women Jane Andrews 1833-1887 Unitarian educator, childrens author Rebecca Sophia Clarke 1833 -1906 Unitarian childrens author Annie Adams Field 1834-1915 Unitarian author, literary hostess, charity worker; married to James Fields, editor of the Atlantic; after his death lived with Sarah Orne Jewitt, author Olympia Brown 1835-1926 Universalist minister, suffragist Augusta Jane Chapin 1836-1905 Universalist minister, activist; one of the chief organizers of the Parliament of the Worlds Religions, 1893, especially of participation of many women of a variety of faiths in this event Ada C. Bowles 1836-1928 Universalist suffragist, abolitionist, temperance supporter, home economist Fanny Baker Ames 1840-1931 Unitarian charity organizer; suffragist, teacher; leader of the Unitarian Womens Auxiliary Conference Charlotte Champe Stearns Eliot 1843-1929 Unitarian author, reformer; father-in-law was William Greenleaf Eliot, Unitarian minister and founder of Washington University, St. Louis; son was T.S. Eliot, poet Eliza Tupper Wilkes 1844-1917 Universalist and Unitarian minister Emma Eliza Bailey 1844-1920 Universalist Universalist minister) Celia Parker Woolley 1848-1919 Unitarian, Free Religious Association minister,social reformer Ida Husted Harper 1851-1931 Unitarian journalist, historian and biographer and press expert for the woman suffrage movement Anna Garlin Spencer 1851-1931 Free Religious Association minister, writer, educator, NAACP founder, social reformer; also wife of Unitarian minister William B. Spencer; though Spencer was associated with Unitarian, Universalist, and Ethical Culture congregations, she identified with the broader free religion Mary Augusta Safford 1851-1927 Unitarian minister Eleanor Elizabeth Gordon 1852-1942 Unitarian minister Maud Howe Elliott 1854-1948 Unitarian author, social reformer; daughter of Julia Ward Howe (also on this list) Maria Baldwin 1856-1922 Unitarian educator, reformer, first African American woman principal Harriot Stanton Blatch 1856-1940 Unitarian suffragist; daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (also on this list) Alice Stone Blackwell 1857-1950 Unitarian suffragist, reformer; daughter of Lucy Stone (also on this list) and Henry Brown Blackwell Fannie Farmer 1857-1915 Unitarian (and Universalist?) cookbook author, teacher of cooking and dietetics; first to write recipes wit exact measurements Ida C. Hultin 1858-1938 Unitarian and Universalist minister; spoke at 1893 Parliament of the Worlds Religions Caroline Julia Bartlett Crane 1858-1935 Unitarian minister, social reformer, sanitation reformer Carrie Clinton Chapman Catt 1859-1947 Unitarian connections suffragist, pacifist, founder of League of Women Voters Ellen Gates Starr 1859-1940 Unitarian roots, converted to Roman Catholicism co-founder of Hull House, labor activist, Socialist Charlotte Perkins Stetson Gilman 1860-1935 Unitarian (feminist, speaker, author of Herland, The Yellow Wallpaper) Jane Addams 1860-1935 Presbyterian social reformer, settlement house founder; author of Twenty Years at Hull House; attended All Souls Unitarian Church in Chicago and the Ethical Culture Society in Chicago for many years; was briefly an Interim Lecturer at the Ethical Society; retained her membership in a Presbyterian congregation Florence Buck 1860-1925 Unitarian minister, religious educator, writer Kate Cooper Austin1864-1902 Universalist, freethinker feminist, anarchist, writer Alice Ames Winter 1865-1944 Unitarian Womans Club leader, author; daugher of Fanny Baker Ames (also on this list) Beatrix Potter 1866-1943 Unitarian (British) artist, author; wrote Peter Rabbit series Emily Greene Balch 1867-1961 Unitarian, Quaker 1946 Nobel Prize for Peace; economist, pacifist, a founder of the Womens International League for Peace and Freedom Katherine Philips Edson 1870-1933 Unitarian suffragist, reformer, labor arbitrator (Sara) Josephine Baker 1873-1945 Unitarian health reformer, physician, public health administrator Amy Lowell 1874-1925 Unitarian poet Edna Madison McDonald Bonser 1875-1949 Universalist minister, religious educator; first woman minister in Illinois Clara Cook Helvie 1876-1969 minister Sophia Lyon Fahs 1876-1978 Unitarian Universalist religious educator, minister Ida Maud Cannon 1877-1960 Unitarian social worker; known as founder of medical social work Margaret Sanger 1883-1966 birth control advocate, social reformer Marjorie M. Brown 1884-1987 Unitarian (uthor, Lady in Boomtown Maja V. Capek 1888-1966 Unitarian (Czechoslovakian) Unitarian minister; helped create the Flower Communion and introduce it to Unitarians in America and Europe Margaret Barr 1897? - 1973 Unitarian (British) educator, administrator, helped create Unitarian church movement in Khasi Hills, India; friend of Gandhi May Sarton 1912-1995 Unitarian Universalist poet, author Sylvia Plath poet Malvina Reynolds songwriter, folksinger Frances Moore Lappe author, nutritionist, activist: wrote Diet for a Small Planet Jewel Graham Unitarian Universalist social welfare educator; President, World YWCA