Parker, Theodore, 1810-1860. Papers, 1836-1862.

Theodore Parker (1810-1860) graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1836 and was ordained to the West Roxbury, Massachusetts, Unitarian Church in 1837. He played a pivotal role in moving Unitarianism away from a Bible-centered faith, and in 1841, when he gave an ordination sermon entitled "A Discourse on the Transient and Permanent in Christianity," he emerged as a major figure in the Transcendentalist movement. Following the sermon, Parker was barred from the majority of Unitarian pulpits because a majority of Unitarian lay people and clergy found his ideas to be non-Christian. He continued his speaking engagements and became more and more controversial. In 1845, his followers, known as Parker-ites, established the Twenty-Eighth Congregational Society (Boston) and Parker became the pastor of this church. He was also a major figure in the abolitionist movement, leading the Boston opposition to the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850, and serving as minister-at-large to fugitive slaves in Boston. He was also the chairman of the executive committee of the Vigilance Committee, a fugitive slave aid society. Parker's aid to fugitive slaves led to a federal indictment in 1854 which was dismissed on a technicality in 1855. Parker was also a proponent of women's suffrage and delivered a well-known sermon, "On the Public Function of Woman," in 1853. He served as the editor of the Massachusetts Quarterly Review from 1848 to 1851, and published many works, including Theism, Atheism, and the Popular Theology (1853), A False and True Revival of Religion (1858), and The Revival of Religion Which We Need (1858). He died in 1860 and was buried in Florence, Italy.