[Ads-l] Serenity Prayer (early instance March 9, 1933)

Wed Dec 25 13:06:01 UTC 2019

Thanks for your helpful responses, Fred.
The QI website now has an entry on the Serenity Prayer. It is a
complex topic and the article is brief (only 2,200 words). The article
reflects your viewpoint presented in the 2014 article in "The
Chronicle Review" (as I understand it).
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/12/24/serenity/

Feedback from you or other mailing list members would be gratefully received.
Happy holidays to all celebrants
Garson

On Wed, Dec 25, 2019 at 7:17 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
>
> Merry Christmas to all, if such a thing is possible in today's world.
>
> In case my message below was unclear, I was making a point that the 1933 Atlanta Constitution citation was not actually a prayer.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2019 5:35 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Serenity Prayer (early instance March 9, 1933)
>
> I have known for several years about the March 9, 1933 occurrence of the Serenity Prayer language (not the Serenity Prayer itself).
>
> As some of you may know, of all the words and phrases and quotations and proverbs I have researched, the Serenity Prayer is the item I am most obsessed with.  I have continued to research it even after the two front-page New York Times articles and the Chronicle of Higher Education article.  There is much I could say on this subject, but I am not yet ready to do so.
>
> I do, however, encourage others to investigate early evidence of the SP!  If anyone is to make real advances on what I have already found, it would be Stephen Goranson or Garson O'Toole or one of the other great sleuths on ADS-L.
>
> Fred Shapiro
>
>
>
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of ADSGarson O'Toole <adsgarsonotoole at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Tuesday, December 24, 2019 4:42 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Serenity Prayer (early instance March 9, 1933)
>
> My post about the Serenity Prayer contained an OCR error.  "Mrs.
> Harrie K. Chamberlin" should have been "Mrs. Harrie R. Chamberlin".
> Garson
>
> On Tue, Dec 24, 2019 at 8:52 AM ADSGarson O'Toole
> <adsgarsonotoole at gmail.com> wrote:
> >
> > The following citation presents the second oldest full instance of the
> > Serenity Prayer (I think). This post mentions three instances.
> > However, Fred Shapiro or Stephen Goranson may know of other early
> > instances of which I am unaware.
> >
> > [ref] 1933 March 9, The Atlanta Constitution, Y.W.C.A. Regional
> > Conference Closes On Thursday, Quote Page 6, Column 7, Atlanta,
> > Georgia. (Newspapers_com) [/ref]
> >
> > [Begin excerpt]
> > The address of Mrs. Harrie K. Chamberlin, national president, will
> > bring the conference to a close this morning, her subject being, "A
> > New Role for Leadership." She will request Y. W. C. A. board and staff
> > members to carry to their associations "hope for the future based upon
> > experience of the past, with the courage to change what must be
> > altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and insight to know
> > one from the other."
> > [End excerpt]
> >
> > A partial match for the Serenity Prayer was found in an entry dated
> > October 31, 1932 of Winnifred Wygal's diary located at the Schlesinger
> > Library on the History of Women in America at the Radcliffe Institute
> > for Advanced Study Harvard University. Fred described this citation in
> > his 2014 article in "The Chronicle Review". See below for a link to
> > the article.
> >
> > The earliest full version of the Serenity Prayer appeared in the March
> > 1933 issue of "The Woman’s Press" within an article titled "On the
> > Edge of Tomorrow" by Winnifred Wygal. Fred also described this
> > citation in his article in "The Chronicle Review".
> >
> > Website: The Chronicle Review (The Chronicle of Higher Education)
> > Article title: Who Wrote the Serenity Prayer?,
> > Article author: Fred R. Shapiro,
> > Date on website: April 28, 2014
> > https://nam05.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.chronicle.com%2Farticle%2FWho-Wrote-the-Serenity-Prayer-%2F146159%2F&data=02%7C01%7Cfred.shapiro%40yale.edu%7C937f16bd63984796ef7808d788c1a0f7%7Cdd8cbebb21394df8b4114e3e87abeb5c%7C0%7C1%7C637128237532493111&sdata=RA8t6JcIk4VkCTKgzdpZDFTEBcasfVW7pR4KrGAnDgs%3D&reserved=0
> >
> > Garson
>
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