Overview
Papers of Unitarian minister, Homer Alexander Jack, including reports, correspondence, and minutes. The papers span 1903-1967.
Dates
- Creation: 1903-1967.
Access
There are no restrictions on access to this collection.
Extent
2 boxesThis collection consists of material related to the various positions Homer Jack held with the American Unitarian Association and the Unitarian Universalist Association. The folders are arranged alphabetically, and they contain reports, correspondence, minutes, memoranda, newspaper clippings, and printed matter. Topics include Jack's involvement with the Department of Adult Education and Social Relations, the Unitarian Pacific Fellowship, the Unitarian Fellowship for Social Justice, and the Commission on Ethics and Social Action. The folders on Communism focus primarily on a controversy surrounding Stephen H. Fritchman, who was editor of the AUA journal The Christian Register from 1942 to 1947. Homer Jack believed that Fritchman was a Communist and that he was using his position at the AUA to further the aims of Communism.
Biographical / Historical
Homer Alexander Jack (1916-1993) was born in Rochester, New York. He graduated from Cornell University with a BS in 1936, an MS in 1937, and a PhD in 1940. He also received a BD in 1944 and was awarded an honorary DD in 1971, both from Meadville Theological School. He served as minister of the Unitarian Church of Evanston, Illinois, from 1948 to 1959 and the Lake Shore Unitarian Universalist Society in Wilmette, Illinois, from 1984 to 1987. He was founder of the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE) in 1942; executive director of the Chicago Council Against Racial and Religious Discrimination from 1943 to 1948; vice chairman of the Illinois Division of the American Civil Liberties Union from 1946 to 1959; executive director of the National Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy (SANE) from 1960 to 1964; director of the Unitarian Universalist Department of Social Responsibility from 1964 to 1970; founded the United Nations Non-Governmental Committee on Disarmament in the early 1970s and headed the department until 1983; and was secretary-general of the World Conference of Religion and Peace from 1970 to 1983, when he became secretary-general emeritus. Jack was the author and editor of many published works, including Biological Field Stations of the World (1945), The Wit and Wisdom of Gandhi (1951), The Gandhi Reader (1956), World Religions and World Peace (1968), and Disarm or Die (1983).
General note
The number after the slash in each entry in the following list indicates the box number, and the number in parentheses is the folder number.
- Title
- Jack, Homer Alexander. Papers, 1903-1967: A Finding Aid.
- Author
- Andover-Harvard Theological Library
- Language of description
- und
- EAD ID
- div01270
Repository Details
Part of the Harvard Divinity School Library, Harvard University Repository
Special Collections at Harvard Divinity School Library preserves and makes accessible primary source materials documenting the history of religion and theology, with particular historical emphasis on American liberal religious traditions. Though the historical strengths of the collections have been in the field of Christianity, other religious traditions are increasingly reflected, in step with Harvard Divinity School's evolving focus on global religious studies. Known as Andover-Harvard Theological Library since 1911, it was renamed the Harvard Divinity School Library in 2021.
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