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From 1999-2001, I was the ministerial intern for the Unitarian Universalist Districts in parts of Connecticut and Massachusetts. By the end of my internship, these two districts had merged into the Clara Barton District of UU congregations. One of my assignments was to help 66 congregations decide what the new district's name would be. They decided to name it for a historical figure associated with the district. To facilitate the process of choosing, each of six historical figures came back to life one day and described for these congregations the reasons their name might be chosen. The following scripts represent those re-enactments. You may use these scripts but please give credit where credit is due.
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SUSAN B. ANTHONY, 1820–1906
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The daughter of a successful farmer and mill-owner, Susan Anthony grew up in a devout Quaker family in northern New York State. She worked as a schoolteacher in her teens and twenties, before abandoning her career in 1849 and turning her energies toward social reform. Her Quaker upbringing exposed her to many reform causes of the day, notably temperance, women's rights and the abolition of slavery. In the 1850s, Anthony became a prominent figure in the women's rights movement, working closely with longtime activist Elizabeth Cady Stanton. She also served in the American Anti-Slavery Society, and challenged barriers to female leadership in temperance societies and educational associations.
http://us.history.wisc.edu/hist102/bios/2.html
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P.T. BARNUM, 1810-1891
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"Circus promoter P.T. Barnum turned his traveling menagerie into 'the greatest show on earth.' What many people do not know is that Phineas Taylor Barnum also vigorously promoted his chosen faith, Universalism, and its flagship college, Tufts University." (UU World, Sept/Oct 2002, Hank Peirce)
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CLARA BARTON, 1821-1912
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American humanitarian, organizer of the American Red Cross, b. North Oxford (now Oxford), Mass. She taught school (1839–54) and clerked in the U.S. Patent Office before the outbreak of the Civil War. She then established a service of supplies for soldiers and nursed in army camps and on the battlefields. She was called the Angel of the Battlefield. In 1865 President Lincoln appointed her to search for missing prisoners; the records she compiled also served to identify thousands of the dead at Andersonville Prison. In Europe for a conference at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War (1870), she went to work behind the German lines for the International Red Cross. She returned to the United States in 1873 and in 1881 organized the American National Red Cross, which she headed until 1904. She worked successfully for the President’s signature to the Geneva treaty for the care of war wounded (1882) and emphasized Red Cross work in catastrophes other than war. Among her writings are several books on the Red Cross. http://www.factmonster.com/ce6/people/A0806347.html
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THE REV. OLYMPIA BROWN, 1835-1926
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American Universalist minister and woman-suffrage leader, b. Prairie Ronde, Mich.; grad. Antioch College, 1860, and the theological school of St. Lawrence Univ., 1863. She was one of the first women in America to be ordained (1863) to the ministry. For 30 years she was president of the Wisconsin Woman’s Suffrage Association. In 1873 she married Henry Willis, but retained her own name. http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/b/browno1l.asp
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LYDIA MARIA CHILD, 1802-1880
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American author and abolitionist, b. Lydia Maria Francis, Medford, Mass. She edited (1826–34) the Juvenile Miscellany, a children’s periodical. She and her husband (David Lee Child, whom she married in 1828) were devoted to the antislavery cause; she wrote widely read pamphlets on the subject in addition to editing (1841–49) the National Anti-Slavery Standard, a New York City weekly newspaper. Selections from her Standard essays were published in 1999 as Letters from New-York. Other writings include several historical novels and a book on the history of religions. Her Frugal Housewife (1829) went through many editions. http://www.bartleby.com/65/ch/Child-Ly.html
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THE REV. PHOEBE HANAFORD, 1829-1921
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American Universalist minister. She was the first woman ordained (1868) in New England. Hanaford was the author of fiction, history, and a chronicle of American women, Daughters of America (1882). http://www.encyclopedia.com/html/E/E-H1anaford.asp
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