page_title: First Unitarian Church of Rochester
section_title: Gannett ministry
hierarchical_section_title: First Unitarian Church of Rochester / History / Gannett ministry
caption_attribution_description: English: Advertisement for Gannett House, the former parish house for the First Unitarian Church of Rochester and the location of the Boys' Evening Home around 1900. The advertisement appeared in The Common Good magazine.
context_page_description: The First Unitarian Church of Rochester is located at 220 Winton Road South in Rochester, New York, U.S. The congregation is one of the largest in its denomination, the Unitarian Universalist Association. The non-creedal church conducts programs in the areas of spirituality, social concerns, music, and arts. This church is one of two Unitarian Universalist congregations in Monroe County, the other being First Universalist Church of Rochester.
  The church was organized in 1829. Associated with social reform movements from its earliest days, it began attracting a group of reform activists from Quaker backgrounds in the 1840s, one of whom, Susan B. Anthony, became a national leader of the women's suffrage movement. After the first women's rights convention was held at Seneca Falls, New York in 1848, a follow-up convention, the Rochester Women's Rights Convention, was organized two weeks later at the First Unitarian Church of Rochester. Abigail Bush was elected to preside at this convention even though the idea of a woman chairing a public meeting was considered too daring even for some of the leaders of the emerging women's movement who were present.
context_section_description: William Channing Gannett served as minister from 1889 to 1908. He came from a prominent Unitarian family, his father, Ezra Stiles Gannett, having written the constitution for the American Unitarian Association and served as its first secretary. William Channing Gannett himself had gained prominence as a leader of the successful movement within the denomination to end the practice of binding it by a formal creed, thereby opening its membership to non-Christians and even to non-theists. While pastor of a Unitarian church in Wisconsin before coming to Rochester, he had served as vice president of that state's women's suffrage association.
  Mary Thorn Lewis Gannett, Rev. Gannett's wife, was "very nearly his co-pastor," according to a church history. Coming from a Philadelphia Quaker background, she never relinquished her membership there, attending Quaker meetings whenever she visited Philadelphia. In Rochester, however, she was active in the First Unitarian Church and assisted in the formation of several community organizations.
  The Gannetts focused their energy on social issues. Urging the congregation to be "a seven-day instead of a one-day church", Rev. Gannett encouraged it to become more involved with its downtown neighborhood of low-income immigrants.
  The Gannetts accordingly initiated the Boys' Evening Home, which opened in 1890 in the church's parish house. Within three months its membership had grown to 95 even though some of its members had to leave because they had been sentenced to the State Industrial School. By 1893 the Home had a paid superintendent and was teaching classes in manual arts and drawing, and by 1898 its offerings had expanded to include such subjects as current events, zoology, literature and journalism. A small newspaper produced by the boys campaigned against penny slot machines, which were illegal gambling devices that could be found in candy stores. The neighborhood boys came largely from Polish and Russian Jewish immigrant families. When they reached their late teens, several members of the Boys' Evening Home formed the Judean Club in Rochester, which eventually became, according to Rosenberg's The Jewish Community in Rochester, "the most important cultural forum in the Jewish community of that time." At least four members of the Boys' Evening Home went on to become rabbis, one of whom credited Rev. Gannett with helping him choose that profession. Benjamin Goldstein, another member, became executive secretary of Temple B'rith Kodesh. Another former member, Meyer Jacobstein, was elected to the House of Representatives in Washington. Volunteers from B'rith Kodesh assisted the work of the Boys' Evening Home.
  From 1889 to 1908 Mary Gannett led First Unitarian's Women's Alliance, through which "much of the church's activity was organized and executed". About 1902 the Women's Alliance opened the Neighborhood Friendly for Girls, which provided classes in housekeeping, cooking, and sewing for girls in the church neighborhood.
  The Gannetts sponsored the formation of the Unity Club in 1889, which was initiated by the Women's Alliance but was open to anyone in Rochester. With as many as a hundred members, it was divided into small classes under the tutelage of the Gannetts for the intensive study of such thinkers as Thoreau, Hawthorne, George Eliot, and the Fabians. The secretary of the Social Topics class, which examined social problems of the day, was Emma Sweet, a member of First Unitarian who was Susan B. Anthony's secretary.
  In 1889 Mary Gannett established the Woman's Ethical Club, an interfaith organization that discussed the ethical aspects of social topics and campaigned for the admission of women to the University of Rochester. By the middle of the 1890s, the Ethical Club was attracting several hundred women to its meetings.
  Other members of First Unitarian engaged in social and political work during the Gannett years. Mary Anthony, sister of Susan B. Anthony, was active in many aspects of church life and was also deeply involved with the campaign for women's rights. In 1885 a group of women 
caption: Advertisement for Gannett House, the church's parish house and the home of the Boys' Evening Home
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