Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record: Final Series

I CAN'T FIND A PICTURE OF

FLORENCE KIPER

BUT

I WANTED TO

The final series--the twenty-first--of Ethical Addresses and Ethical Record was published in 1914.  The American Ethical Union immediately launched a new serial publication--The Standard.  The AEU also announced that it would no longer publish the International Journal of Ethics, a more scholarly publication that began as the Ethical Record and continues today as Ethics.

The addresses included in this final issue represent a wide range of focus.  The first is "Must We Believe in Immortality?" by Henry Neumann (pp. 1 -19), summed up in the sentence:  "While life remains, live nobly."  In a similar philosophic vein, David Saville Muzzey questions "Have We Religious Duties?" (pp. 67-79).  Shifting to current events and practical issues, Felix Adler talked about "False Ethics in Social Reform Movements" (pp. 45-56).  In this he focused on good intentions that have a bad outcome, e.g., when violence is used to gain justice. Horace J. Bridges focused on "The Victorious Death of Captain Scott," (pp. 91-106) referring to the death of Robert Falcon Scott on (or about) March 29, 1912 as he returned from the South Pole.  Bridges' message speaks to us today:

May we so live that at the last — in utter desolation, if so it must be — both we and those who look to us for example and strength, shall be able to find nothing for regret in our journey through the wilderness of this world. (p.106)

John Lovejoy Elliot and Florence Kiper focus on what I believe we can call "equity," or, just as easily, "women's rights."  Elliott speaks of working women and their (inadequate) wages.  Florence Kiper's essay was reprinted from The Forum.  While the title is "The Jewish Problem in America," her argument for an end to discrimination against Jews is presented with careful parallels with discrimination against women.  NOTE:  Florence Kiper [Frank], poet and playwright, does not have a Wikipedia page, but her husband, Jerome Frank, does.  (Just saying.)

There are still some "loose ends" to tie up regarding this serial; later posts will do that, I hope.  Then comes the question of "What next for the Bibliography?"  An obvious step would be to begin documenting the two serials that bracket EA&ER, that is, the short-lived Ethical Record or the somewhat longer-lived The Standard.  However, there is some urgency in documenting our living thinkers and writers while we can still discuss their work with them.  As well, there is the matter of hundreds of archive boxes waiting for documentation at NYSEC and AEU.  

The current focus on EA&ER had a beginning and an end in the space of 21 volumes.  A similarly finite project relates to the so-called "Carnegie Lectures."  These are the addresses delivered at Carnegie Hall during the 1895 and 1896 seasons at NYSEC.  A handful of them have already been published in EA&ER and possibly elsewhere.  How to make the others both readable and accessible to more readers in a significant part of that project.  

The next few weeks will tell us more about "more hands and more eyes" as well as funding/institutional support for the ongoing work.  

For now:  Happy New Year (almost)!