Parker, Theodore (1810-1860)

BIOGRAPHICAL NOTE

Unitarian theologian, social reformer, and Transcendentalist Theodore Parker was born in Lexington, Massachusetts, on 24 August 1810. Parker was largely self-educated but he graduated from Harvard Divinity School in 1836 and was ordained pastor in West Roxbury in 1837. He quickly made his name as a liberal and controversial theologian, and he resigned his pastorate in increasingly adversarial conditions. Shortly after, he was installed as minister of the 28th Congregational Society of Boston founded by his supporters. In Boston, along with figures such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, A. Bronson Alcott, and Orestes Brownson, he was a participant in what would become known as the Transcendental Club. He became active in social reform, including advocacy for Temperance, women's rights, prison reform, and Abolition. Parker fell ill with tuberculosis and traveled to the Caribbean and Europe in the hopes of improving his health but he died in Florence aged 49 on 10 May 1860. While Parker did not follow a veg*n diet, like most Transcendentalists he was concerned with the welfare of animals as part of his vision of interconnected being or nature. Accordingly, in his anti-slavery tracts, he repeatedly draws on the trope of degraded and exploited animals.                                                                      Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

PUBLICATIONS

“The Chief Sins of the People. A sermon delivered at the Melodeon, Boston, on Fast-Day, April 10, 1851.” Boston: Benjamin H. Greene, 1851.
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102477049

“Of Conscious Religion as a Source of Joy.” Ten Sermons of Religion. Boston: Crosby, Nichols, 1853.
https://archive.org/details/tensermonsrelig01parkgoog/page/n274/mode/2up

“The Effect of Slavery on the American People. A sermon preached at the Music Hall, Boston, on Sunday, July 4, 1858.” Boston: W. L. Kent and Co., 1858.
https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/102445980
 

Last updated on March 12th, 2024

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