Beacon's mission

In 1854, according to "A Brief History of the Beacon Press," educator George Emerson, cousin of one-time Unitarian minister Ralph Waldo Emerson, helped establish a Book and Tract Fund for what was then called the American Unitarian Association. "We can send forth a thousand volumes, to be read by ten thousand, for what it will cost to send one missionary here and there to a few hundreds," argued AUA president Samuel Kirkland Lothrop. Operating out of 21 Bromfield St., the AUA published sermons by Unitarian ministers, many of whom gave such prickly issues as women's rights and abolition of slavery a theological spin. In 1902, the generally more secular Beacon Press imprint of the publishing operation had its debut.

In the 1940s and '50s, Beacon signed up philosophers Alfred North Whitehead and John Dewey, and became known for publishing criticisms of both Joseph McCarthy and Joseph Stalin; in the process, it helped pioneer the trade paperback. In the '60s and '70s Beacon issued such seminal titles as Herbert Marcuse's "One-Dimensional Man," Howard Zinn's "SNCC: The New Abolitionists," and Mary Daly's "Beyond God the Father." With the publication of Starhawk's popular 1982 book "Dreaming the Dark: Magic, Sex, and Politics," the press headed into realms of far-out spirituality at which even a Unitarian might balk. More recently, Beacon's provocative bestsellers have included Cornel West's "Race Matters" and Michael Patrick MacDonald's "All Souls," a vivid memoir about growing up on the violent streets of South Boston.