George Willis Cooke

George Willis Cooke (born April 23, 1848 in Comstock , Michigan , † April 30, 1923 in Revere , Massachusetts ) was an American Unitarian clergyman and scholar, who stood out primarily for his work on the history of Unitarianism and New England transcendentalism .

Life

Cooke came from a farming family and grew up in Michigan. After graduating from high school, he prepared for a career as a clergyman, studying but not earning a degree at Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan, the Jefferson Liberal Institute in Jefferson, Wisconsin, and finally Meadville Theological School in Meadville, Pennsylvania. In 1872 he was ordained as pastor of the Unitarian Church. Within the church he was part of the humanitarian, progressivist wing and stood up as a pastor, especially in his numerous publications for social and economic reforms. His collectivist alternative to the capitalist economic system was fed less from the political theories of contemporary socialism than from the philosophy of New England transcendentalism. As a pastor he worked in several parishes in the Midwest and New England until 1899, but then withdrew from active church service in order to concentrate fully on his lecture tours and publications. It was not until 1922 that he resumed a pastorate in Francestown, New Hampshire , but died the following year.

Cooke wrote numerous works on the history of ideas in New England, especially his biographical studies on Ralph Waldo Emerson and the music critic John Sullivan Dwight . His church history overview work Unitarianism in America (1902) was reprinted several times (most recently in 1971) and is still considered a standard work on the history of Unitarianism in the 19th century.

Works (selection)

• Ralph Waldo Emerson: His Life, Writings, and Philosophy (1881)
• George Eliot: A Critical Study of Her Life, Writings, and Philosophy (1883)
• A History of the Clapboard Trees or Third Parish, Dedham, Mass., Now the Unitarian Parish, West Dedham, 1736-1886 (1887)
• A Guide-Book to the Poetic and Dramatic works of Robert Browning (1891)
• The Spiritual Life: Studies of Devotion and Worship (1893)
• John Sullivan Dwight, Brook-farmer, Editor, and Critic of Music: A Biography (1898)
• The Poetic and Dramatic Works of Robert Browning (1899)
• Unitarianism in America: A History of its Origin and Development (1902)
• An Historical and Biographical Introduction to Accompany the Dial (1902)
• A Bibliography of James Russell Lowell (1906)
• A Bibliography of Ralph Waldo Emerson (1908)
• The Social Evolution of Religion (1920)

literature

• Charles E. Howe: George Willis Cooke ( The Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography , online)
• Jabez T. Sunderland: George Willis Cooke: An Appreciation . In: Unity of June 14, 1923.