Catalogue of American Unitarian Hymn Books. compiled by Henry Wilder Foote and reprinted (with revisions) from the Proceedings of the Unitarian Historical Society, May, 1938, by permission.

In the 17^th century, and down to the middle of the 18^th, all churches of the Congregational order in New England used the Bay Psalm Book, first printed in Cambridge in 1640, except for the use of Ainsworth’s Psalter in the churches of the Plymouth Plantation and in the First Church in Salem for a part of the 17^th century. In the latter part of the 18^th century, the Bay Psalm Book was gradually superseded by either the New Version of the Psalms (Tate and Brady) or, more generally, by one of the editions of Watts and Select, i.e. Isaac Watts’ Psalms and Hymns, with a supplement of hymns selected from other authors.

The first steps away from the Psalm books in general use were taken by two churches which were in the vanguard of the rising liberalism of the last half of the 18^th century. In 1782 the West Church in Boston published A Collection of Hymns, more particularly designed for the Use of the West Society in Boston (1),[6] and in 1788 the East Church in Salem published A Collection of Hymns for Publick Worship, (2). These two books were of only 13 local significance, but they clearly pointed the way which later publications were to follow. In 1795 Rev. Jeremy Belknap brought out his Sacred Poetry (3), which was an attempt to produce a book which should be acceptable to both the liberal and the orthodox wings of Congregationalism. In this purpose it failed, though it was widely used by Unitarians. The succeeding books were more definitely Unitarian in character and illustrate the changing emphasis in religious thought and practice through five generations of religious liberals. They form a notable series, for most of them attained a literary standard and spiritual outlook higher than that of other contemporary hymn books.

The earlier books in this series were very imperfectly edited, judged by modern standards. Some of them contain no preface and no indication as to the identity of the compiler. In other cases, the compiler is indicated by initials. In some cases the names of the authors of hymns are not given at all, in others only the surname, when known, and there are frequent mistaken attributions. Directions as to the music are usually lacking, the metre of each hymn alone being indicated. In some cases the names of suitable tunes are given, but only one book (18) earlier than 1868 included any music, in that case an appendix of twenty-one tunes in two parts at the back of the book. The first American Unitarian hymn book to be printed with a tune on each page was the American Unitarian Association’s Hymn and Tune Book of 1868 (34). Thereafter few books appeared without tunes, but half-a-dozen other collections with music were published in the next forty years, each of which had considerable use.

It will be noted that in the course of the 19^th century no 14 less than thirty-six different hymn-books appeared, a far larger number than any other American denomination can show for the same period, and illustrative of the extreme individualism of the Unitarian churches. Throughout the middle third of the century Greenwood’s Collection (13), the Springfield Collection (14), and the Cheshire Collection (20), had the widest use, followed in the last third of the century by the Hymn and Tune Books (34) and (36) of the American Unitarian Association, but all the other collections had some local vogue, in some cases only for a brief period or only in those churches the ministers of which had compiled the collections in question. As late, however, as the beginning of the 20^th century, at least eight different hymn-books were in use in the Unitarian churches of the United States and Canada. This diversity of usage declined rapidly after the publication of The New Hymn and Tune Book (45) in 1914, and had practically disappeared by the time when that book’s successor, Hymns of the Spirit (48) was published in 1937.

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