The Beacon Press, a department of the Unitarian Universalist Association, traces its beginnings to 1854 when the American Unitarian Association raised $50,000 for a Book Fund Project. The AUA "issued an urgent call for liberal works that would meet the spiritual needs of the age." Until 1950, the strength of the Press was in history, biography, and a locus in religious thought and religious freedom. Melvin Arnold became the director of the Press in the late 1940s, and he transformed it into a widely recognized voice for liberal religious values. Since the late 1980s, the Beacon Press has taken on an increasingly independent institutional role as a publisher of works of fiction and non-fiction with contemporary or historical religious, social, and philosophical perspectives.
From the guide to the Beacon Press. Wendy Kaminer. Records, 2003-2008., (Andover-Harvard Theological Library, Harvard Divinity School)
