Washington Gladden

Washington Gladden (February 11, 1836 – July 2, 1918) was a leading American Congregational pastor and early leader in the Social Gospel movement. He was a leading member of the Progressive Movement, serving for two years as a member of the Columbus, Ohio city council and campaigning against Boss Tweed as religious editor of the New York Independent. Gladden was probably the first leading U.S. religious figure to support unionization of the workforce; he also opposed racial segregation. He was a prolific writer who wrote hundreds of poems, hymns, articles, editorials, and books.

Gladden was born February 11, 1836, in Pottsgrove, Pennsylvania, the son of Solomon and Amanda (Daniels) Gladden. He was given the name Solomon Washington Gladden. When Gladden was six, his father died. After that, he lived with his uncle on a farm near Owego, NY. There, he learned and practiced a farmer’s “manual arts” and used any free time for serious reading that included the Bible.

During Gladden’s formative years, western New York State was known as the Burned-Over District because it had been the center of a number of religious revivals. Gladden heard many preachers in a fruitless search for “assurance of divine favor” until in his eighteenth year a “clear-headed minister” helped him “trust the Heavenly Father’s love” for him. From then on Gladden believed that religion is “summed up in the word Friendship”: friendship “with the Father above and the brother by our side.”

At age 16, Gladden left his uncle’s farm to become an apprentice at the Owego Gazette' Two years later (1854) at age 18, he became part of the temperance movement by joining the order of the Good Templars.

During his newspaper apprenticeship, Gladden made his “choice of a calling,” namely, to become an ordained minister in the Congregational Church. This calling required further study, so he enrolled in the Owego Free Academy and from there he enrolled in and graduated from Williams College in the class of 1859. While at Williams, Gladden wrote its alma mater song, "The Mountains."

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