Humanist Manifesto

Audience

The Humanist Manifesto was published in the May–June 1933 edition of magazine The New Humanist, which was subtitled “a Bulletin of the Humanist Fellowship.” The magazine had been founded in 1927 and published its first issue in 1928. In the inaugural issue, the president of the Humanist Fellowship, H. C. Creel, wrote:

The membership of the Fellowship is not, at present, limited to persons of any single type of interest or any single walk of life. It is hoped that, as it grows, this will continue to be the case. Humanism, to be worthy of its ideals, neither can be a neo-ecclesiasticism nor a neo-scholasticism. We are interested, primarily, in building a society in which every human being shall have the greatest possible opportunity for the best possible life. Insofar as we are Humanists, every secondary interest must be judged by this prime criterion.

In the second issue, Creel wrote that the purpose of the publication was to bring “the Humanists of this country (and of the world, if possible) into relations of mutual awareness and cooperation.” Thus, the audience for the Humanist Manifesto included not only people interested in humanism per se but also people interested in religious dialogue, particularly dialogue about the role, function, and meaning of religion in the modern world. Additionally, the magazine functioned as a resource for clerics, especially Unitarian clerics, who found in it ideas for the content of services.