Peabody, Francis Greenwood

Peabody, Francis Greenwood (1847–1936) Unitarian clergyman, educator; born in Boston, Mass. A clergyman's son, he graduated from Harvard in 1869 and from Harvard Divinity School three years later. Ordained a Unitarian, he held a pastorate in Cambridge for several years and from 1881 taught theology at Harvard, where he offered one of the first systematic courses in Christian social ethics in an American university. Optimistic, convinced of the possibility of establishing the kingdom of God on earth, he supported various reform movements in theory and in practice. He continued to lecture at Harvard for many years after his retirement in 1913.