Frederick May Eliot (1889-1958)
9th Minister of Unity Church: 1917 -- 1937
Photo: circa 1913 (MNHS)
Biography
"Frederick May Eliot" (Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography)
Eliot, Frederick May (1889-1958) (Harvard Square Library)
"Chapter 20 Frederick May Eliot 1889-1958," in These Live Tomorrow: Twenty Unitarian Universalist Lives edited by Clinton Lee Scott, 1964.
Harvard Library: Biographical / Historical
Frederick May Eliot (1889-1958) was born in Boston and graduated Harvard College with an AB in 1911 and an AM in 1912. He was a Harvard College instructor of government from 1912 to 1913 and attended Harvard Divinity School from 1912 to 1915. He was ordained to the Unitarian ministry in 1915 at the First Parish in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and also served at the Unity Church in St. Paul, Minnesota. He served as president of the Young People's Religious Union from 1916 to 1918 and served as an army chaplain in France during World War I from 1918 to 1919. He chaired the Unitarian Commission on Appraisal from 1934 to 1937. In 1937 he was elected president of the American Unitarian Association and held the post until his death in 1958. While president, he established the Unitarian Service Committee in 1940 in order to aid Europeans under the Nazi regime. He served as a trustee of Mount Holyoke College(Massachusetts) from 1940 to 1958, and the College designated its religious services building as the Eliot House. He was chaplain of the Massachusetts State Senate from 1948 to 1948 and again from 1951 to 1958. He was on the Board of the Massachusetts Bible Society,served as a director of the American Civil Liberties Union, and was a Fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He authored The Unwrought Iron: An Introduction to Religion (1920). https://hollisarchives.lib.harvard.edu/repositories/12/resources/773
World War I service
From Class of 1911 - Decennial Report, Harvard University:
In August 1918, I went overseas as Red Cross chaplain, attached to Base Hospital 7. On October 25, 1918, I was commissioned chaplain, with rank of First Lieutenant, U.S.A., and remained with the same unity, returning to the United States in March, 1919.
From BASE HOSPITALS OF THE AEF [American Expeditionary Forces]: http://www.worldwar1.com/dbc/basehosp.htm
There were some 230+ base hospitals.
Base Hospital 7: Joué-les-Tours (City/Town) Indre-et-Loire (French Dept. Country)
Château And Type A Unit (Buldings Used)
From Harvard’s Miltary Record in the World War, 1921
Eliot, Frederick May...Chaplain, American Red Cross, Base Hospital No. 7, France, September 14, 1918. Commissioned chaplain with rank of 1st Lieutenant October 29, 1918; continued work with Base Hospital No. 7; returned to United States March 25, 1919; discharged March 29, 1919.
Works
Frederick May Eliot: An Anthology (Beacon Press, 1959)
Fundamentals of Unitarian Faith: Five Sermons Preached in Unity Church, October 1926 (Google)
“Tensions in Unitarianism A Hundred Years Ago” (Harvard Square Library)
The Unwrought Iron* (Google Books)
"Humanism and the Inner Life," in Humanist Sermons, edited by Curtis Reese, 1927.
World Cat: Eliot, Frederick May 1889-1958 : 139 works in 204 publications in 1 language and 577 library holding
Historical Collection, Anderson Library, Unity Church-Unitarian; Eliot, Frederick May (holdings)
Unitarian History
"UU Ancestors: Frederick May Eliot," Delivered to the First Unitarian Church of Wilmington Delaware March 28, 2010 By Rev. Dr. Joshua Snyder
Archives
Eliot, Frederick May, 1889-1958. Papers, 1909-1961. COLLECTION Identifier: bMS 70
Harvard Library
UNITY CHURCH (ST. PAUL, MINN.): AN INVENTORY OF ITS CHURCH RECORDS AT THE MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY -- CORRESPONDENCE AND --MISCELLANEOUS PAPERS, LOCATION 123.F.18.4F Eliot, Frederick M. See also holdings for Elizabeth Eliot.
SNAC (Social Networds and Archival Context): Eliot, Frederick May, 1889-1958
Photos of Frederick May Eliot, Minnesota Historical Society
Approximately 1935 (MNHS)
The Frederick May Eliot Family
Father: Christopher Rhodes Eliot
Eliot, Christopher Rhodes, 1856-1945. Papers, 1872-1943. (Harvard)
Grandfather: William Greenleaf Eliot, Jr.
Grandmother: Abigail Adams Cranch
Mother: Mary Jackson May
Related to Louisa May Alcott.
Great-Uncle: Rev. Samuel May
Sisters/Siblings: Martha May Eliot, Abigail Adams Eliot
Papers of Abigail Adams Eliot, 1858-1979 (Harvard)
Spouse: Elizabeth Berkeley Lee
Children: Richard Eliot, Christopher Rhodes Eliot II
Cousins: T. S. Eliot, Charles Eliot Furness (husband of Marion Ramsey Furness, daughter of Alexander Ramsey)
No Silent Witness: The Eliot Parsonage Women and Their Unitarian World by Cynthia Tucker