{{Short description|American clergyman and philanthropist (1778–1840)}} {{Use mdy dates|date=April 2025}} {{Infobox person/Wikidata | fetchwikidata = ALL | dateformat = mdy | suppressfields = father | children = 10, including Sarah Becker<ref>{{Cite web |title=Joseph Tuckerman Papers |url=https://www.masshist.org/collection-guides/view/fa0326 |access-date=2024-07-11 |website=Massachusetts Historical Society}}</ref> }}
'''Joseph Tuckerman''' (January 18, 1778 Boston – April 20, 1840 Havana) was a United States clergyman and philanthropist.
==Biography== He graduated from Harvard College in 1798, where William Ellery Channing was in his class, and Joseph Story roomed with him.<ref name=acab>{{Appletons'|wstitle=Tuckerman, Joseph|year=1889|inline=1}}</ref> He studied theology, and became a Unitarian pastor in Chelsea in 1801.<ref name=nie>{{NIE|wstitle=Tuckerman, Joseph|inline=1}}</ref> In 1826 ill health led him to move to Boston.<ref name=dab>{{Cite DAB |last=Bolton |first=Ethel Stanwood |title=Tuckerman, Joseph|year=1936}}</ref> He was appointed by the American Unitarian Association minister at large, devoting himself to city mission work, establishing a ministry-at-large, now known as the Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry, with the dual focus of empowering Boston’s most underprivileged citizens and transforming the spiritual consciousness of its most privileged residents.<ref>{{cite web| url=http://www.uuum.org/?page_id=636| title=UU Urban Ministry| publisher=Unitarian Universalist Urban Ministry| accessdate=October 16, 2017}}</ref>
He is best known as one of the founders of the Boston Society for the Religious and Moral Improvement of Seamen (1812), said to be the first sailors' aid society in the United States.<ref name=nie /><ref name=dab /> He was also a pioneer in the scientific direction of philanthropy.<ref name=nie /> “To the system inaugurated by him,” said Edward Everett Hale, “Boston owes it that in every revulsion of business, or in any great calamity, her ordinary institutions of charitable relief have proved sufficient for whatever exigency.” In France his principles were adopted by Baron de Gérando. In England they resulted in the Tuckerman Institute of Liverpool, and other associations. He visited England in 1833 and formed friendships with Lady Byron, Joanna Baillie, and others, with whom he maintained a constant correspondence.<ref name=acab />
Tuckerman Street and Tuckerman Hall in Worcester, Massachusetts are named after him.
==Literary works== He wrote much in behalf of his projects. His writings were collected in the volume ''On the Elevation of the Poor'' (Boston, 1874).<ref name=nie />
==Further reading== * W. E. Channing wrote a ''Life'' (Boston, 1841) * Mary Carpenter did also (London, 1849)
==References== {{reflist}}
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{{DEFAULTSORT:Tuckerman, Joseph}} Category:1778 births Category:1840 deaths Category:Harvard College alumni Category:American Unitarian clergy