Lyman Abbott

Abbott, Lyman (18 Dec. 1835-22 Oct. 1922), Congregational clergyman and editor of the Outlook, was born in Roxbury, Massachusetts, the son of Jacob Abbott, a pastor and author of the "Rollo" children's books, and Harriet Vaughan. Raised in Farmington, Maine, Abbott graduated from New York University with an A.B. in 1853. He then joined his brothers' law firm, passing the bar examination in 1856. The following year he married Abby Frances Hamlin, and they settled in Brooklyn, New York. There Abbott came under the influence of the nationally renowned preacher Henry Ward Beecher. He left law practice in 1859 to tutor himself in theology at the family home in Farmington, Maine.

In March 1860 Abbott received a call to the pastorate of the Congregational church in Terre Haute, Indiana, where he served during the Civil War years. His interest in helping to create a stable postwar society led him to return to New York in 1865 to direct the American Freedmen's Union Commission, offering aid and education to both white war refugees and black freedmen.

Disillusioned with the competitiveness of aid associations, Abbott moved to Cornwall on Hudson, New York, in 1869 to build a home, raise his six children, and become a full-time writer. Within two years he became editor of the Illustrated Christian Weekly, a Protestant family paper published by the American Tract Society. Wishing to make the Weekly a broad publication with commentary on contemporary issues, Abbott chafed against the rigid orthodoxies of his publisher. Thus when Beecher invited him in 1876 to become associate editor of the Christian Union, Beecher's primary organ of social commentary, Abbott eagerly accepted. When Beecher resigned from the paper in 1881, Abbott assumed full editorial responsibility.

During the 1880s the Christian Union had a circulation of only 20,000, but Abbott's moderate Christian progressivism was evident, especially through his regular column of commentary on current affairs, which he called "The Outlook." In 1893, no longer wanting to sound so ecclesiastical, Abbott changed the publication's name to the Outlook. Thus ensued twenty years of growing national influence, as the magazine soared to a circulation of over 100,000.

Meanwhile, the congregation of Beecher's church, Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn, also turned to Abbott, electing him pastor in 1888. As editor of the premier nonsectarian Protestant publication of the day and preacher in one of the country's most famous Protestant pulpits, Abbott was a national figure between 1890 and 1915. He knew eight American presidents and was a particularly close advisor to Theodore Roosevelt (1858-1919), who became an associate editor of the Outlook after his presidency. The magazine threw its full and open support behind Roosevelt's unsuccessful third-party run for the presidency in 1912, a stand that proved unpopular with many readers and was a turning point toward the publication's ultimate demise.

Abbott was an influential popularizer of Protestant progressivism. Gentle and controlled in temperament, avoiding the stiffness of orthodoxy and the heat of extremes, he was a mediator of new ideas and a persuasive advocate of moral progress. His numerous speeches and articles interpreted new scholarship such as biblical criticism or evolutionary theory for a lay public, promising that all increased knowledge was for the good of humanity and the advancement of the Kingdom of God. His most noted book, The Evolution of Christianity (1892), passed over the scientific hypothesis of the evolution of species, rather extending the idea of evolution to show that Christianity was the highest religion and Christendom the highest culture. Abbott rejected Darwinism's theme of survival of the fittest in favor of an irenic thesis that evolution simply described human growth toward a more ethical society. Evolution would lead to the fulfillment of Christlikeness when all humanity would become an incarnation of the divine.

Abbott shared with many Protestant contemporaries a passion for the spread of Christian civilization. He was active in the Lake Mohonk conferences (1883-1916) encouraging the full integration of Native Americans into white society. He decried isolationism and preached America's moral responsibility to intervene in such conflicts as the Spanish-American War. A moderate social reformer, he coined the term "industrial democracy" to advocate a greater share of profits and better conditions for American workers, though he abhorred the methods of labor unions.

Abbott resigned from Plymouth Church in 1899 but continued as editor of the Outlook with assistance from his son Ernest Hamlin Abbott. He traveled extensively, though during a family vacation in Germany in 1907, his wife died suddenly just before their fiftieth wedding anniversary. The magazine became increasingly secular, especially after World War I, eventually dropping all reference to church interests. His son assumed the editorship at Abbott's death in New York, but after various mergers and changes of ownership, the Outlook ceased publication in 1935.

Abbott's career exemplified the progressive period of American Protestantism. His magazine spoke for many in advancing a faith in scientific progress and growing democracy tempered by adherence to Christian ethics. Abbott and his contemporaries assumed a world that would acknowledge the moral supremacy of Christianity. When that world was shaken to its foundations by World War I, Abbott quickly lost currency as a definer of American cultural values.

Bibliography

Abbott wrote not only his regular column for the Outlook for forty years, but also many articles in other periodicals such as Harper's Monthly, Century, and North American Review. His extensive speeches were collected in a number of published volumes, including most notably Christianity and Social Problems (1896) and The Theology of an Evolutionist (1897). He wrote a biography of Henry Ward Beecher (1903) as well as his own Reminiscences (1915). The latter was reissued in 1923 by Ernest Hamlin Abbott with an introduction covering the last years of Abbott's life. The major biography of Abbott is Ira V. Brown, Lyman Abbott, Christian Evolutionist: A Study in Religious Liberalism (1953). For a historical profile of the Outlook, see Charles H. Lippy, ed., Religious Periodicals of the United States (1986). A major obituary and editorial tribute for Abbott are in the New York Times, 23 Oct. 1922. Extensive tributes by political, cultural, and religious leaders are in the Outlook, 8 Nov. 1922.

Thomas E. Frank

Citation:

Thomas E. Frank. "Abbott, Lyman";

http://www.anb.org/articles/08/08-00006.html;

American National Biography Online Feb. 2000.

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