Early Years

Gladden was innate withwithin 1836 in Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania to devout parents as Solomon Wa Gladden. Gladden's father died whilst he was sestet & he spent very much of his childhood accept his uncle in the farm in Oswego, New York. At a instance, american Just released York State was referred to as a Burned-Over District because it had been the center of a total of religious revivals. He joined a temperance movement as a boy.

Gladden became a journalist at a age of Xvi & changed his title in the area of the equivalent instance. All the same, he was lament to get the clergyman studying at the Owego Academy and graduated from Williams College in Williamstown, Massachusetts. When at Williams, Gladden wrote its alma mater song, A Mountains.

Early Career 1860-1882

Gladden was ordained as a minister witharound 1860 & began his career working in New York City. Inside his 1909 autobiography Recollections, Gladden wrote that he wanted to practice as a minister "a religion that laid hold upon life, and proposed first and foremost, to realise the Kingdom of God in this world." He married Jennie Cohoon around 1860 & a few experienced trey toddlers.

Within 1866, Gladden moved to North Adams, Massachusetts, serving as pastor until 1871. His 1st important book, Plain Thoughts in Existence the Christian, was promulgated inside 1868. He was a religious editor of the Just released York Independent between 1871 & 1875. When acting editor of the Independent thereinside period of time, he was taking part in exposing a corrupt organization of Boss Tweed.

Inside 1875, Gladden became a Congregationalist pastor around Springfield, Massachusetts. He published Working Population & their Employers in 1876, which advocated a unionisation of employees; Gladden was a number 1 notable U.S. reverend to approve of unions. Gladden did non trend lines socialism or laissez faire economics, advocating instead the application of "Christian law" to issues. He was the charter member of the American Economic Association.

Columbus Years 1882-1918

Gladden became a pastor of the Foremost Congregational Church witharound Columbus, Ohio in 1882, & would service therein position for thirty-2 years. In the period of that period, Gladden would acquire his reputation as a religious leader & as a community leader. Around 1886, he travelled to Cleveland during a street-car strike and spoke at a public meeting in "Is it Peace or War", supporting the rights of the workers to form a union to protect their interests.

He helped to promote modernist views inside books like Burning Questions (1890) & That Wrote a Bible (1891). Inside That Wrote a Bible, Gladden declared: "it is idle to try to force the narrative of Genesis into an exact correspondence with geological science."

Gladden served the term on the Columbus City Council between 190& 1902 & became an advocate of municipal ownership of public works. He likewise led a movement to vary the dates of elections inside Ohio from either October to November.

He was Vice President of the American Missionary Association between 1894 & 1901 & served when a President of the organization between 1901 and 1904. Therein capacity, he travelled to Atlanta, Georgia to visit Atlanta University and meet W.E.B. DuBois, where he was shocked at the condition of Southern blacks and started speaking out against segregation.

He resigned when President of a Our contries Missionary Association to require higher the position when the Moderator of the National Council of Congregational Churches in 1904. Inside 1905, he denounced the $100,000 gift to the Congregationalists from John D. Rockefeller as "tainted".

Gladden was a President of Ohio State University until his battle with a American Protective Association over its nativistic rhetoric cost him that position. A University of Notre Dame conferred him with an honorary doctor's degree around recognition of his stance against anti-Catholicism.

Gladden is credited sustaining getting written the total of anthem including O Master, Let Us Hike Sustaining Thee. He resigned when pastor of the 1st Congregational Church inside 1914 & died of the stroke in 1918.

Partial Bibliography

Wa Gladden wrote Forty books in the period of his life. These involved:

Plain Thoughts on the Art of Dwelling 1868 From either a Hub to the Hudson 1869 Working Humans & their Employers 1876 A Young Men & the Churches 1885 Applied Christianity 1887 Burning Questions 1890 World health organization Wrote a Bible 1891 A Church & The Kingdom 1894 Ruling Ideas of the Present Age 1895 A Christian Pastor 1898 Social Salvation 1901 Christianity & Socialism 1905 Recollections 1909