Edward Everett Hale (1822 - 1909) is remembered for his short story in the Atlantic Monthly in 1863, "The Man Without a Country."  It was still being assigned when I went to public school in New York.  Born in Boston, Hale's father owned a Boston newspaper and was a bookseller.  Hale was also a grand nephew of Revolutionary War hero and spy, Nathan Hale ("I regret that I have but one life to give for my country.")  Largely self-taught using his father's immense personal library, he entered Harvard at age 13.  While at Harvard, he shed Calvinistic Christianity and decided to become a Unitarian minister, being ordained in 1842.  He believe religion should be simple in its demands and tried to live by his own motto "Look up, not down.  Look forward, not back. Look out, and not in.  Lend a hand."  He married Emily Perkins, the niece of Harriet Beecher Stowe, and raised nine children with her. He became an abolitionist and tried to keep Kansas a free state.  He founded the Lend a Hand Society which helped to better the lot of the working class and poor by offering free literacy classes.  Hale tried to bring together the conservative, spiritual, and radical branches of the Unitarian denominations, arguing that diverse and larger congregations enriched the participants.  He wrote histories, biographies, essays, short stories, and novels.  He also hid a serious flaw.  He fell in love with his secretary, Harriet Freeman, and they kept their relationship a secret for years.  They wrote over 3000 letters to each other, the intimate parts in a shorthand code.  

-- Elof Carlson, Designated Historian