Hall, Frank Oliver (1860-1941)

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Jane Addams et al. to William Howard Taft, December 30, 1911

Paul Underwood Kellogg to Jane Addams, December 27, 1911

Edward Thomas Devine to Members of the Committee on Industrial Relations, May 23, 1912

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Birth Date

1860-03-19

Death Date

1941-10-18

Birthplace

New Haven, CT

Biographical Text

Frank Oliver Hall attended Tufts College, graduating with honors in 1884. While attending Tufts, he became part of the Universalist Society in Fitchburg, Massachusetts, becoming ordained and serving until 1892. He then joined the Grace Universalist Parish, and in 1895 he joined the Third Universalist Society in Cambridge. Hall had a reputation for having a loud voice and for his controversial support of social activism. He preached to a large crowd and became involved in the social gospel movement, a religious movement where ministers connected salvation and good deeds by arguing that helping people was what God would want. In 1901, Hall wrote Common People, discussing how churches could aid people struggling economically. In 1902, the Church of the Divine Paternity in New York picked Hall as their minister, and he served from 1901 to 1919 and again from 1929 to 1938. While serving, Hall led the church in philanthropic work, and many of his sermons were published. At his suggestion, Divine Paternity created a settlement house in the East Side and supported Sunshine Farm, a farm for inner-city children to go to in the summer. In 1919, he resigned from preaching and became a professor at Tufts, though he left this position in 1929 when he returned to Divine Paternity. Hall was chairman of the Universalist General Convention's Commission on Social Service, a trustee of the Church Peace Union, the Universalist General Convention, and the New York State Convention of Universalists, chairman of the John Murray Lectureship, a member of the Fraters of the Wayside Inn, and a fellow of the American Unitarian Association. He was also chaplain of the Empire State Society of the Sons of the American Revolution but lost this position during World War I due to his pledge to preach peace.

Hall married Vermeille A. Swan in 1895. They had one daughter together. In 1918, Vermeille died, and Hall remarried to Helen Greanelle in 1919. Hall died in 1941.