William Ellery Channing was the foremost Unitarian preacher in the United States in the early nineteenth century and, along with Andrews Norton (1786–1853), one of Unitarianism's leading theologians. Channing was known for his articulate and impassioned sermons and public speeches, and as a prominent thinker in the liberal theology of the day. His religion and thought were among the chief influences on the New England Transcendentalists although he never countenanced their views, which he saw as extreme. His espousal of the developing philosophy and theology of Unitarianism was displayed especially in his "Baltimore Sermon" of May 5, 1819, given at the ordination of the theologian and educator Jared Sparks (1789–1866) as the first minister of the newly organized First Independent Church of Baltimore.
Harriet Elizabeth Prescott Spofford was an American writer of novels, poems and detective stories. One of the United States's most widely-published authors, her career spanned more than six decades and included many literary genres, such as short stories, poems, novels, literary criticism, biographies, and memoirs. She also wrote articles on household decorative art and travel as well as children's literature.
Hannah Adams was an American author of books on comparative religion and early United States history. She was born in Medfield, Massachusetts and died in Brookline. Adams is believed to have been the first woman in the U.S. to work as a professional writer.
Sarah Fuller Flower Adams was an English poet and hymnwriter. A selection of hymns she wrote, published by William Johnson Fox, included her best-known one, "Nearer, My God, to Thee", reportedly played by the band as the RMS Titanic sank in 1912.
Lewis and Harriet Hayden House was the home of African-American abolitionists who had escaped from slavery in Kentucky; it is located in Beacon Hill, Boston. They maintained the home as a stop on the Underground Railroad, and the Haydens were visited by Harriet Beecher Stowe as research for her book, Uncle Tom's Cabin (1852). Lewis Hayden was an important leader in the African-American community of Boston; in addition, he lectured as an abolitionist and was a member of the Boston Vigilance Committee, which resisted the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850.
Mary Catherine Crowley was an American author of poems and novels. She was also an accomplished musician and linguist. Crowley began her literary work in 1877 as a contributor of poems and short stories to Wide Awake, St. Nicholas Magazine, Ladies' Home Journal, and The Pilot. In 1892, she went to Europe and on her return, lived for ten years in Detroit, where she was a collaborator on the Memorial History of the city. Crowley was a recognized authority on the early history of that city, and a leader in its bicentennial celebration in 1901, the pageant being founded on descriptions in her book A Daughter of New France.
Harriet Abbott Coolidge was an American philanthropist, author and reformer. She did much in the way of instructing young mothers in the care and clothing of infants, and furthered the cause to improve the condition of infants in foundling hospitals. She contributed a variety of articles on kindergarten matters to the daily press, and while living in Washington, D.C., she gave a series of "nursery talks" for mothers at her home, where she fitted up a model nursery. Coolidge was the editor of Trained Motherhood; and author of In the Story Land, Kindergarten Stories, Talks to Mothers, The Model Nursery, and What a Young Girl Ought to Know. She was one of the original signers of the Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution, and was an active member of four of the leading charity organizations in Washington. She died in 1902.
Mary Elizabeth Sherwood was an American author and socialite. She wrote short stories, poetry, several books, and etiquette manuals, in addition to contributing to many magazines and translating poems from European languages. Among her writings are The Sarcasm of Destiny, A Transplanted Rose, Manners and Social Usages, Sweet Briar, and Roxobel. Better known as Mrs. John Sherwood, some of her literary works were published as "M.E.W.S." or "M.E.W. Sherwood".
Elliott Dan Kieff was an American physician who was the emeritus Harriet Ryan Albee Professor of Microbiology and Immunobiology at Harvard Medical School and Brigham and Women’s Hospital. He had previously served as chair of the Virology Program at Harvard Medical School from 1991 to 2004.
Dorothea Rhodes Lummis Moore was an American physician, writer, newspaper editor, and activist. Although a successful student of music in the New England Conservatory of Music, in Boston, she entered the medical school of Boston University in 1881, and graduated with honors in 1884. In 1880, she married Charles Fletcher Lummis, and in 1885, moved to Los Angeles, California, where she began practicing medicine. She worked as dramatic editor, musical editor, and critic at the Los Angeles Times. She was instrumental in the formation of a humane society which was brought about through her observations of the neglect and cruelty to the children of the poor, and Mexican families, visited in her practice; and the establishment of the California system of juvenile courts.
Sophie Naylor Grubb was a 19th-century American activist. During the civil war, she began to manifest the ability, energy and enthusiasm for activism that distinguished her through life. She published leaflets and tracts on all the issues of the temperance movement in seventeen languages, at the rate of fifty editions of 10,000 each per year. She lectured on the issue of women's suffrage, holding 75 meetings in Kansas in 1898. Grubb died in 1902.
Amelia Minerva Starkweather was an American educator and author who was a lifelong worker in philanthropic and charitable enterprises, and highly successful in evangelistic meetings.
Emily Gillmore Alden was an American author and educator. For forty years, Alden was a member of the faculty of Monticello Seminary, and for nearly fifty years, the poet of the school. Alden wrote the commencement day poems for Monticello every year since she entered the institution. Harriet Newell Haskell : a span of sunshine gold was published in 1908 and Poems by Emily Gillmore Alden was published in 1909.
Sarah Lanman Smith was a 19th-century American Christian missionary, memoirist, and school founder. In 1835, she established the American School for Girls, which became the Lebanese American University.
Daniel Robert Kuritzkes is an American physician.
Alice Blanchard Coleman was an American missionary society leader. She served as president of the Woman's American Baptist Home Mission Society and of the Council of Women for Home Missions (1908-16). Coleman was a trustee of Hartshorn Memorial College, Richmond, Virginia; Spelman Seminary, Atlanta, Georgia; and the New England Baptist Hospital, Boston. Writing as "Mrs. George W. Coleman", she made at least two contributions to periodical literature, "The Women's Congress of Missions", 1915, and "Recent developments in Mormonism", 1918. All of Coleman's life was spent in the old South End of Boston.
Susie Forrest Swift was an American Salvationist, and later, after converting to Catholicism, a Dominican nun. In both roles, she worked as a magazine editor.
Lelia P. Roby was an American philanthropist of the long nineteenth century. She was the founder of the Ladies of the Grand Army of the Republic. Thoroughly educated, she was a connoisseur in architecture and art, a linguist, and a well-read lawyer. She did a good deal of literary work under the pen-name "Miles Standish".
Miriam O'Leary Collins was an American stage actor associated with Boston Museum theatre. After marriage, she staged plays, several times for the benefit of the Home for Destitute Catholic Children. She also worked as a elocution and dramatic action coach.
Channing Home was an American "home-hospital". It was not a hospital in the common definition of the word, but a home for women whose death seemed quite certain and required constant medical attendance. Located in Boston, Massachusetts, the Home was established in 1857, and incorporated in 1861. It was founded by Harriet Ryan Albee through the assistance of rich women friends whom she had drawn into sympathy with her charitable purpose.
