Augusta Jane Chapin
Augusta Jane Chapin (July 16, 1836 – June 30, 1905) was a Universalist minister, educator and activist for women's rights. She was born in Lakeville, New York, the eldest of eleven children, to Almon Morris Chapin and Jane Pease.
In 1852, at the age of 16, she began to attend the Olivet College.[1] In December 1864 in Lansing, Michigan, she became one of the first women to be ordained as a minister.[2][3] In 1893 Chapin was conferred a Doctor of Divinity degree by Lombard University; the first ever awarded to a woman in America. In 1893 she chaired the Woman's Committee of the World Parliament of Religions as part of the Chicago World's Fair. She was a charter member of the American Woman Suffrage Association.
Chapin served many congregations during her ministerial career: itinerancy in Michigan, 1859–63; Bennington, Michigan, 1864–67; Mount Pleasant, Iowa, 1868; Milwaukee, Wisconsin, 1869; Iowa City, Iowa, 1870–73; Allston, Massachusetts, 1874; San Francisco, California and Oregon, 1874; Lansing, Michigan,[4] 1875; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, 1875–76; Blue Island, Illinois, 1876–77; Chicago, Illinois, 1878; Aurora, Illinois, 1878–79; itinerancy in Michigan, 1880–83; Hillsdale, Michigan, 1884–85; Oak Park, Illinois, 1886–92; Omaha, Nebraska, 1894–95; and Mount Vernon, New York, 1897-1901.
References
- ↑ Dorothy May Emerson; June Edwards; Helene Knox (2000). "Augusta Jane Chapin". Standing before us: Unitarian Universalist women and social reform, 1776-1936. Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations. p. 438. ISBN 978-1-55896-380-1.
- ↑ Lansing State Republican, December 14, 1864
- ↑ Foss, Gwen, editor. Diaries of the Reverend Chauncy Washington Knickerbacker, Universalist Minister: 1843-1884. Gwen Foss; Farmington Hills, MI, 2007 (ASIN B00166HPBE)
- ↑ Busch, Ed, Shirley Beckman and Harry Schwarzweller. "Dedicated Lives: 162 Years of Liberal Ministry and Its Ministers in Lansing, Michigan 1849 - 2011", Unitarian Universalist Church of Greater Lansing, East Lansing, Mich., 2011.
- Dictionary of Unitarian and Universalist Biography
- Cassara, Ernest. "Chapin, Augusta Jane" Notable American Women. Vol. 1, 4th ed., The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975 (ISBN 978-0-674-62734-5)
External links
- Papers, 1856-1914. Schlesinger Library, Radcliffe Institute, Harvard University.