Unitarianism in America

Book excerpt: A very thorough history of Unitarianism throughout American history,.how it has organized itself, and what it has accomplished. Contents include: English Sources of American Unitarianism --- The Liberal Side of Puritanism --- The Growth of Democracy in the Churches --- The Silent Advance of Liberalism ---- The American Unitarian Association ---- The Denomination Awakening --- Unitarians and Reforms --- The Future of Unitarianism; and much more. Originally published in 1902. George Willis Cooke (1848-1923), born in Comstock, Michigan, was a Unitarian minister, writer, editor, and lecturer best known now for his landmark history of the Unitarian movement in the 19th century and for his work on transcendentalist writers and publications. An insatiable reader throughout his life, Cooke was largely self-taught. His first major work, published in 1881, was Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Life, Writings and Philosophy. He wrote several other studies of transcendentalism, with particular attention to the utopian community, Brook Farm, and the transcendentalist periodical, The Dial. His book, Unitarianism in America, first published in 1902, was the standard work on 19th century Unitarianism for some time and is still the major source of information on Unitarian developments in the early decades after the Unitarian controversy.