The Anglo-American Unitarian Connection and Urban Poverty

Abstract

The serious study of transatlantic intellectual, cultural and religious relations began in the 1940s and 1950s with the classic accounts of Brebner and Thistlethwaite which set them within the development of an Atlantic economy expanding greatly in the first half of the nineteenth century. Economic links were enriched by mercantile religious networks, friendships, visits and exchange of information through both formal writings and private correspondence. Despite recognizing differences between Britain and North American societies and cultures this founding historiography was patently influenced by the wartime Anglo-American alliance and the Cold War. It provided a historical and cultural dimension to the ideological conviction of the linked destiny of North America and western Europe. Similarity of values and practices arose from the movement of people as well as the economic and other networks. The classic studies showed a particular interest in mutual influences and collaboration; North America, Brebner concluded, could not be explained in purely continentalist terms. Equally, Thistlethwaite argued, sectors of the British population were peculiarly open to American influences and models of activity in pursuit of political reform and social improvement. Scholars assigned to denominational religious connections special importance in grappling with social issues. More recent scholarship continues to underline the largely harmonious religious, voluntarist, self-help tradition linking the North Atlantic world.¹