Felix Adler Felix Adler is considered the founder of the Ethical Culture movement. Without him, something like Ethical Culture may have developed, but it would have lacked the singular influence of his passionate energy and vision.
Felix Adler was born 13 August 1851 in Alzey, Germany. His family immigrated to the United States when he was five, and his father, Rabbi Samuel Adler, eventually became head of Temple Emanu-El, one of the most influential Jewish Reform congregations in New York City. Adler graduated from Columbia College in 1870 and from there went to Germany to study Continental Philosophy at the University of Heidelberg. During these years he was exposed to the ethical philosophy of Immanuel Kant, whose Categorical Imperative became a foundation for Adler’s own maxim of "eliciting the best".
Felix Adler Adler returned to America in 1873, and became a professor of Hebrew and Oriental Literature at Cornell University. Also in 1873 he delivered his first and only address to the Temple Emanu-El, entitled "The Judaism of the Future", which proposed ridding the religion of its superstitious traditions in order to better focus on the ethics which he felt was central to any human community. The congregation was receptive to his emphasis on ethics, but they were not about to cast aside three thousand years of tradition for the sake of one young man's bright idea. Adler soon found himself on the outside, cast to the margins. In 1876, Adler founded the New York Society for Ethical Culture, and in the ensuing years played a major part in the establishment of other Ethical Societies across the country. He remained the moral and spiritual leader of the Ethical Movement until his death in 1933.
Adler’s achievements were not limited to Ethical Culture, nor would you expect them to be, given his philosophy of active moral engagement with the world. He was an educational pioneer, founding the Ethical Culture Schools in Manhattan and Fieldston in the Bronx. He started the first free kindergarten in America. He was a champion of social reforms, including the establishment of model low-income housing and the abolition of child labor. And although he was a pacifist by nature, he was not opposed to American involvement in the First World War.
Adler wrote much, and lectured even more, but his published material is relatively sparse. An Ethical Philosophy of Life is a systematic unfolding of his ideas. The Reconstruction of the Spiritual Ideal is the collection of the prestigious Hibbert Lectures he gave at Oxford in 1923. These books and others are available through the American Ethical Union.
Ethical Culture Timeline A sampling of significant events in Ethical Culture History. Most of the dates are taken from the very informative Toward Common Ground: A History of the Ethical Societies of the United States by Howard Radest.
1876 First Meeting, May 15, Standard Hall, New York City
1877 New York Society for Ethical Culture founds the Visiting Nurse Service (originally District Nursing), the first social service that did no missionary work for organized religion.
1880 The Workingman's School established. Renamed The Ethical Culture School in 1895.
1886 The Neighborhood Guild in New York City (now University Settlement), the first settlement house in the United States, established by Stanton Coit.
1889 American Ethical Union founded.
1897 Hudson Guild Settlement established by John Lovejoy Elliott.
1904 National Child Labor Foundation established with Felix Adler serving as chairman until 1922.
1933 The Humanist Manifesto is published with the signatures of many of the new generation of Ethical Culture Leaders.
1939 The Good Neighbor Committee, providing assistance of all sorts to refugees throughout the war, with the active participation of Eleanor Roosevelt and many others, centers its work in the New York Society Meeting House.
1952 International Humanist Ethical Union founded.
1967 AEU Peace Commission established.
1973 Humanist Manifesto II is published with significant contribution from Ethical Culture leadership.
1976 Ethical Action Office established in Washington D.C.
1984 Humanist Institute founded.
1996 AEU Lay Leadership Summer School holds its first session.
