Research Guides: Unitarian Universalist Congregations: Home

About "Unitarian Universalist Congregations"

"Unitarian Universalist Congregations" is a collection of publications and manuscripts in the public domain that chronicle major events in the life of historically Unitarian and Universalist congregations in the United States.

How to Use this Guide

Resources are organized first by state, followed by city or town, and then by congregation. Select the state from the list of contents, and drill down to a place or congregation of interest.
Sources are in chronological order. Our aim is to provide you a glimpse at how a congregation's story evolves over time.
Use yearbooks to locate membership, financial and leadership data over time. Yearbooks are also helpful for tracing the career of a minister.
Use annual reports to identify the trends and events that affected congregations, and to see congregational involvement at the national level.
Journals are another great place to research congregations.
To research your congregation's legacy of slavery, check the geographical listing for antebellum church records.
For background information on your topic, see reference works and general history sources.

This guide is NOT exhaustive. We add more open source items as we create or discover them.

Need help? Connect with a subject expert at Harvard Divinity School Library to locate information on Unitarian Universalist congregations.

For reference

Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography
Hundreds of concise biographies of Unitarian and Universalist leaders and celebrated individuals whose religion was Unitarian, Universalist, or Unitarian Universalist. The theme in many of these biographies is the relationship between personal religious conviction and achievement in the larger world.
Harvard Square Library
This digital library of Unitarian Universalist biographies, history, books, and media includes biographical sketches of notable Unitarian Universalists and other important figures in liberal religious history.
Eliot, Samuel A. (Samuel Atkins), 1862-1950. Heralds of a Liberal Faith. Boston: American Unitarian Association, 1910-52.
Biographies of more than five hundred builders of the American Unitarian movement. The first three volumes published in 1901 by the AUA are in the public domain, and the fourth volume by Beacon Press in 1951 is "search only".
Adams, John G. Fifty Notable Years: Views of the Ministry of Christian Universalism during the Last Half-century: With Biographical Sketches. 2nd ed. Boston: Universalist Publishing House, 1883, c1882.
This work includes 135 biographical sketches of Universalist clergy.
Ware, William, 1797-1852. American Unitarian Biography: Memoirs of Individuals Who Have Been Distinguished by Their Writings, Character, And Efforts In the Cause of Liberal Christianity. Boston and Cambridge: J. Munroe, 1850-51.
Sprague, William Buell. Annals of the American Unitarian pulpit, vol. 8. New York: Robert Carter and Brothers, 1865.
Biographical sketches of 80 ministers identifiable within the liberal wing of Congregationalism as it became the Unitarian movement between 1717 and 1855.
Wright, C. Conrad. Bibliography of UU History
An open source version of the author's American Unitarian and Universalist Historical Scholarship: A Bibliography of Items Published 1946-1995 (2001).

General history sources

Cooke, George Willis. Unitarianism in America: A History of Its Origin and Development. American Unitarian Association, 1910.
Types of Unitarian Churches. 1915?
Photographs of various architectural styles of Unitarian churches in the United States, along with brief descriptions the building's history.
Scott, Clinton Lee, 1887-. The Universalist Church of America: a Short History. Boston: Universalist Historical Society, 1957.
Unitarian Universalist History Journals
You can find articles about congregations in Unitarian and Universalist historical journals.
Harvard Square Library
This digital library of Unitarian Universalist biographies, history, books, and media includes biographical sketches of notable Unitarian Universalists and other important figures in liberal religious history.
Wright, Conrad and Unitarian Universalist Association. Congregational Polity : A Historical Survey of Unitarian Universalist Practice. Boston: Skinner House Books, 1997.

More Unitarian Universalist resources at Harvard

Divinity Hall is the oldest building at Harvard Divinity School. William Ellery Channing dedicated the building in 1826 and Ralph Waldo Emerson delivered his "Divinity School Address" here in 1838.

Harvard University, including Harvard Divinity School, developed a strong connection to the Unitarian movement in America beginning in the early nineteenth century. These ties are reflected in the richness of the Harvard Library's Unitarian Universalist resources.

Use HOLLIS, our catalog, to explore resources beyond this guide.

Harvard Divinity School Library is the official repository of the Unitarian Universalist Association, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee, and Beacon Press. Our special collections are particularly strong in the Unitarian Universalist tradition, and include congregational records, unpublished personal papers of ministers, as well as the records of affiliated Unitarian Universalist groups.

For background on how our strong collection developed, see History of HDS Library's Unitarian Universalist collections.

Other locations in the Harvard Library also have unpublished papers of some notable Unitarian, Universalist, and Unitarian Universalist figures. For example, Bronson Alcott's papers are at Houghton and Olympia Brown's papers are Schlesinger Library. When looking for unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and congregational records at Harvard, do two things:

1. Explore archives at Harvard Divinity School Library

2. Search all archives at Harvard University

To order reproductions, or view materials in the library, see HOLLIS Special Request.

Need help? Connect with a subject expert at Harvard Divinity School Library to locate information on Unitarian Universalist congregations.

As with any bibliography of this size, there are likely to be omissions and mistakes. Please contact us with comments and corrections.