Antebellum Unitarianism in New England: Contradictions and Possibilities

Unitarianism in New England originated as a Protestant denomination in the early decades of the nineteenth century. Long regarded as a significant influence on antebellum American writers, Unitarianism has also had its critics, most famously Ralph Waldo Emerson. This essay explores the paradoxes of a movement at once liberal and conservative, focusing in particular on its theological identity and how literature became a vehicle for cultivating a certain kind of religious sensibility.