Bell Street Chapel Discourses.
The First Book By Rhode Island’s
First Female Minister, Inscribed
[Religion]. Spencer, Anna Garlin. Bell Street Chapel Discourses. Containing Selections from the Writing of James Eddy. Providence, Rhode Island: [Journal of Commerce Co.], [1899].
8vo.; green cloth, stamped in gilt; fine.
First edition of Spencer’s first book. A presentation copy, inscribed: Margaret B. Barnard. Chelsea Mass. 1900. From the Author.
Anna Garlin was born in Attleboro, Massachusetts in 1851. The child of distinguished New England parents, Anna was privately educated and early on entered the intellectual life: she began teaching in 1870, the same year she embarked on a journalistic career. In 1878 she met and married the Unitarian minister William Henry Spencer, ten years her senior. Through her marriage the liberal-leaning young wife was exposed to the leftist religious thought then popular among her husband’s circle. Anna, who in 1876 had withdrawn from the Union Congregational Church of Providence over doctrinal issues, after her marriage began delivering sermons in her husband’s churches. In 1891 she became minister of the Bell Street Chapel, a liberal, nondenominational group endowed by local Providence philanthropist James Eddy. Mrs. Spencer was Rhode Island’s first female minister, and one of the few woman ministers in 19th-century United States.
In Bell Street Chapel Discourses Spencer pays tribute to the historical contributions of James Eddy, religious leader and benefactor of the Bell Street Chapel. After its publication, Spencer left Providence, shifting her attentions from the religious ministry to a career in public service. She moved with her husband to New York City, where she worked with the immigrant community. From 1904 to 1912 Spencer served as the Associate Director of the New York Society for Ethical Culture, and in later years became involved with temperance work, pacifism, progressive education, and—last but not least—the women’s suffrage movement. She was an early member of Rhode Island Women’s Suffrage Association, the Women’s Peace Party, and other feminist organizations; she was also a close friend of Susan B. Anthony, and regularly spoke at the annual National Woman Suffrage Association meetings. Spencer suffered a fatal heart attack in New York City in 1931 while attending a League of Nations dinner. She was eulogized at the West Side Unitarian Church and at New York’s Ethical Culture Society, but her body was flown back to Providence, where it was buried in a family plot.
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