1873-1966
Minister, Activist, and Professor

Varied Career.

Harry F. Ward was probably the best-known fellow traveler of the Communist Party among American Protestant clergy in the 1930s. He was born in England in 1873 and came to the United States in 1881. He was ordained in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the northern branch of the Methodist denomination, and quickly became active in reform movements in the early part of the century. He was one of the principal authors of "The Social Creed of the Churches," the most widely circulated expression of the Social Gospel, which attempted to articulate the social ethics of Christianity. In 1907 he organized the Methodist Federation for Social Action (later the Methodist Federation for Social Service). After teaching at Boston University, he joined the faculty of Union Theological Seminary in New York City, where he taught social ethics until his retirement in 1941.

Activism.

There...