Frederick May Eliot

Biography

• "Frederick May Eliot" (Dictionary of Unitarian & Universalist Biography)

• Eliot, Frederick May (1889-1958) (Harvard Square Library)

• "FREDERICK MAY ELIOT: UNITARIAN PRESIDENT, 1889-1958" by Judge Lawrence G. Brooks, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the American Unitarian Association, Abridged from the 1960 issue of The Proceedings of the Unitarian Historical Society (13, Part 1).

• UU Ancestors: Fredrick May Eliot Delivered to the First Unitarian Church of Wilmington Delaware  March 28, 2010 By Rev. Dr. Joshua Snyder

• Harvard College Class of 2011 -- Decennial Report
  
  
  

• "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

Frederick and Elizabeth Eliot with sons Christopher and Richard (right), approximately 1934 (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)

• The Eliot Family (America)

• No Silent Witness: The Eliot Parsonage Women and Their Unitarian World by Cynthia Tucker