Victor Urbanowicz

Victor Urbanowicz

Victor Urbanowicz

MidAmerica Region History and Heritage Committee

MidAmerica Region History and Heritage Committee

From Victor Urbanowicz

Displaying 1 - 10 of 13

When Americans moved west in the 1800s, religious groups played a prominent role in shaping the new communities. According to historian Charles H. Lyttle, Congregationalists, Presbyterians, and Unitarians showed particular interest in establishing tuition-free secular public schools in the new territories...

By Victor Urbanowicz | June 17, 2020 | From MidAmerica Region Historical Vignettes

The settlers around Hanska, Minnesota, came from the area of Toten and the valley of Gubrandsdal in Norway during the 1860s and ‘70s. They found many hardships in this raw new land, but the stamina of many years of struggle in Norway stood them in good stead. As was expected, they formed Norwegian Lutheran churches, an

By Nora Church UU, Hanska, MN, Victor Urbanowicz | February 20, 2020 | From MidAmerica Region Historical Vignettes

This series focuses on the history of Unitarian Universalism in the Midwest, where immigrants often encountered American religious liberalism. The humanist-leaning immigrants were especially attracted to Unitarianism. I will start with a few remarks giving my understanding of humanism.

By Victor Urbanowicz | August 8, 2019 | From MidAmerica Region Historical Vignettes

Willmar (population 19,000) sits in the rural center of Minnesota, where both politics and religion are generally conservative. But generalizations usually have exceptions, and in Willmar many of these are supplied by the Unitarian Universalist congregation.

By Victor Urbanowicz, UU Church of Willmar, Willmar, MN | July 25, 2018 | From MidAmerica Region Historical Vignettes

Eliza Tupper Wilkes (October 8, 1844-February 5, 1917) was a circuit-riding preacher who started eleven Universalist and Unitarian churches in the American West. Among the first women ordained into the ministry, Wilkes worked with and mentored other liberal women ministers in the West.

By Victor Urbanowicz | December 8, 2017 | From MidAmerica Region Historical Vignettes

One doesn't research Adlai E. Stevenson (1900-1965) very far before an impressive picture begins to form. His 1952 acceptance speech for the presidential nomination, for instance, would seem odd today because of the speaker’s ambivalence, but it plainly comes from an extraordinary mind:

By Victor Urbanowicz | July 6, 2017 | From MidAmerica Region Historical Vignettes

Leona Handler Light (1915-1992 [1]) is an impressive and puzzling figure in the history of twentieth-century Unitarian Universalism. She capably served the Western Unitarian Conference in Chicago from the mid-1930s to the early 1940s and then did hazardous duty in Hungary and Transylvania before and during the outbreak

By Victor Urbanowicz | May 9, 2016 | From MidAmerica Region Historical Vignettes

Herman Bisbee (1833-1879) was a well-traveled minister. Born in Vermont, he served churches in New York State, St. Paul and Minneapolis in Minnesota, London’s East End, and Boston. He studied at Harvard and in Nuremberg, Germany.

By Victor Urbanowicz | January 18, 2016 | From MidAmerica Region Historical Vignettes

The Mabel Tainter Center for the Arts stands on East Main Street in Menomonie, Wisconsin. Built in 1889 to house a humanist Unitarian congregation, to provide a performance space for theater and music, and to serve the community in other ways, it is now a historic site that serves similar purposes.

By Victor Urbanowicz | November 11, 2015 | From MidAmerica Region Historical Vignettes

Eleanor Gordon (1852-1942), was co-leader with Mary Safford of the Iowa Sisterhood. In 1912 both were in Orlando, not planning to start new churches at their stage of life, when friends who had moved there from Iowa asked Gordon to organize a church in town. Gordon suggested Safford as the minister but Safford declined

By Victor Urbanowicz | October 2, 2015 | From MidAmerica Region Historical Vignettes

For more information contact .