First Humanist Society of New York

• 1. Introduction

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  Charles Francis Potter founded the First Humanist Society of New York in 1929. Its name sounded modest, almost academic, but the project behind it was not modest at all. Some of the era's most recognized scientific and literary figures would soon be linked to it, lending Potter their names. Potter himself would spend the following decade speaking out publicly on questions many people at the time preferred to avoid. Who backed this project, and what did its founder actually stand for?

• 2. From Pulpit To Print

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  Potter had trained as a minister in the Unitarian tradition before he ever organized a humanist congregation. That background gave him standing as a religious figure even as he worked to reshape what a religion could be. In 1930, a year after founding the society, he and his wife, Clara Cook Potter, published a book called Humanism: A New Religion. The title stated their argument directly, that humanism itself could function as a faith, and the two of them shared credit for it. The book would not be Potter's only public partnership. Others outside his household were about to attach their names to his cause as well.

• 3. Names On The Board

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  Julian Huxley agreed to sit on the society's advisory board, alongside three men whose names needed no introduction. John Dewey, Albert Einstein, and Thomas Mann rounded out the list, each lending personal credibility to Potter's project. Having internationally known figures listed publicly gave the fledgling society a kind of standing it could not have earned through Potter's efforts alone. Their support gave Potter a platform, one he would use for something more than founding a congregation.

• 4. Causes Of A Decade

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  Throughout the 1930s, Potter became a well-known advocate for women's rights. He also pushed for wider access to birth control and for what were then called "civil divorce laws." Capital punishment drew his opposition too, a position that put him at odds with much of mainstream legal opinion in his decade. Ending capital punishment was the last of these causes named in the record of his advocacy. It was also the one that placed him furthest from the era's dominant legal thinking.