Not Your Founding Father: Rhode Island’s Genderless Minister

Join the Rhode Island Historical Society on Wednesday, January 28th, at 6pm at the Aldrich House in Providence for “Not Your Founding Father: Rhode Island’s Genderless Minister” with Nina Sankovitch.

Sankovitch will present the compelling true story of Rhode Island’s own Universal Friend, a self-proclaimed genderless minister who, after awakening from a prolonged illness in 1776, announced they had been sent by God to save the world. Universal Friend ended up founding communities which, in the years following America’s independence from England, provided anyone – no matter their gender or race – with the opportunity to enjoy the “unalienable rights to Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness” that had been promised to all Americans in the Declaration of Independence. Universal Friend, in other words, did what other early American leaders had promised: created a society that strove to uphold equality and opportunity – and succeeded beyond all expectations. But into every Eden comes a snake.

Nina Sankovitch is the author of several nonfiction books, including American Rebels and The Lowells of Massachusetts. She has written for the New York Times, the Huffington Post as a contributing blogger, and was formerly a judge for The Book of the Month Club. A graduate of Tufts University and Harvard Law School, Sankovitch worked as an environmental lawyer for the Natural Resources Defense Council and as President and Executive Director of Save the Sound in Connecticut. She now lives in the Bronx.

Guests can register for this free talk here.