HISTORY OF UNITARIAN UNIVERSALISM IN IOWA CITY

How We Got Here...
We trace our beginning back to 1841, six years before Iowa achieved statehood, when a small Universalist congregation hired its first minister. A few years later it bought its first church for $90. Four different male ministers served these Universalists over the next 20 years before the Rev. Augusta Chapin was called in 1869, not long before the wooden church burned to the ground. After a year in rented quarters, the congregation built a new church on the corner of Clinton Street and Iowa Avenue and dedicated it in 1873, shortly before Rev. Chapin left the city.

Five years of hard times found the congregation low in both membership and funds, a situation which took a decided turn for the better when the American Unitarian Association in Boston offered to fund a minister's salary if the Universalist congregation would provide a church building. With the offer accepted, the Rev. Oscar Clute became the new minister. Services continued at the Clinton-Iowa Avenue site until about 1906, when the congregation sold its building to The University of Iowa. Money from that sale made it possible to build our present building at the corner of Gilbert Street and Iowa Avenue.

Philanthropist Andrew Carnegie provided money for the Felgemacher organ still heard today (although no longer pumped by hand!). Other assistance in the early years of the UUSIC came from such other Unitarian Universalists as Horace Greeley and P.T. Barnum. As had long been anticipated, the Universalist and Unitarian denominations merged nationally in 1961--a union accomplished de facto many years earlier by the Iowa City congregation.

Of the Society's 29 "settled" ministers ("permanent", full-time appointments rather than interim service between "settled" ministers), the Rev. Evans Worthley holds the record for long service--the Depression, World War II and baby-boomer years between 1931-51. Built a decade after he retired, the society's Religious Education addition bears his name, as does the monthly dining club that he and wife Amy launched a half-century ago.

Our current minister, the Rev. Nancy Haley, came to us from Chicago, IL in 1997.

To learn more about the general history of Unitarian Universalism, please visit the UUA (our national organization) history area.

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