Liberal Religious Youth administrative records

Between 1949 and 1951, the American Unitarian Youth (AUY) and the Universalist Youth Fellowship (UYF) published joint material on an experimental basis: a Youth Sunday guide, a songbook, The Youth Leader, The Liberal's Challenge, as well as material explaining the issues around merger. At their annual meetings in the summer of 1949, the two groups each passed a resolution to hold their 1951 conference and annual meeting together. A Joint Relations Committee was formed and charged with planning the Joint Convention of 1951, which was held at Camp Idlewild on an island in Lake Winnepesaukee, New Hampshire. The two groups endorsed a two-year plan for merger, to culminate in 1953, with the Joint Relations Committee and the two Executive Boards handling the transition. In 1952 the AUY-UYF Joint Convention tentatively approved a constitution for the merged organization. In 1953, the Joint Convention was held at Hanover College, Hanover, Indiana. Liberal Religious Youth (LRY) was officially founded in 1954 and was active for decades in anti-war and civil rights work. The LRY was disbanded in 1982 and replaced by Young Religious Unitarian Universalists (YRUU).

The final formal merger votes were held in separate business sessions. The name for the newly merged organization was Liberal Religious Youth, which held its first continental convention in 1954 at Chesire Academy, Chesire, Connecticut.

Liberal Religious Youth was disbanded in 1982 and replaced by the group Young Religious Unitarian Universalists. (From Follow the Gleam: A History of the Liberal Religious Youth Movements, by Wayne B. Arnason. Boston: Skinner House, 1980)