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Biography of Orestes Augustus BrownsonName: Orestes Augustus BrownsonBirth Date: September 16, 1803 Death Date: April 17, 1876 Place of Birth: Stockbridge, Vermont, United States Nationality: American Gender: Male Occupations: clergyman, social activist Orestes Augustus Brownson Orestes Augustus Brownson (1803-1876) was an American clergyman, transcendentalist, and social activist. He passed through the whole range of American religion, from nebulous Unitarianism to firmly disciplined Catholicism.Orestes A. Brownson was born in Stockbridge, Vt., on Sept. 16, 1803, to Sylvester Augustus and Relief Metcalf Brownson. He was entrusted to the care of neighbors after his father died and his mother could not support him. Brownson grew up on a small farm, educated only by his own reading; farm work toughened him and self-education trained his mind. From the start, his bent was toward the church. In 1822 he became a Presbyterian, but he was uncomfortable with the Presbyterian doctrines of election and reprobation. Universalism, on the other hand, preached that all men could be saved and that over the universe presided a loving rather than a just God. In 1826 he became a Universalist minister.The following year Brownson married Sally Healy and …showed first 150 words…
…showed last 150 words…to other magazines besides his own and published several books. In old age, still driven by abundant energy, Brownson moved from place to place restlessly, as in his early days. He died in Detroit on April 17, 1876. Further Reading The Works of Orestes A. Brownson (20 vols., 1882-1907) was edited by Brownson's son, Henry F. Brownson, who also wrote Orestes A. Brownson's Life (3 vols., 1898-1900). Two good biographies of Brownson exist: Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Orestes A. Brownson: A Pilgrim's Progress (1939), traces Brownson's life especially as it related to his religious and social ideas; Theodore Maynard, Orestes Brownson: Yankee, Radical, Catholic (1943), written by a Catholic, emphasizes the years after Brownson's conversion. See also Lawrence Roemer, Brownson on Democracy and the Trend toward Socialism (1953).Ryan, Thomas R. (Thomas Richard), Orestes A. Brownson: a definitive biography, Huntington, Ind.: Our Sunday Visitor, 1976. McDonnell, James M. (James Michael), Orestes A. Brownson and nineteenth-century Catholic education, New York: Garland, 1988. |