Universalist Register 1912: Cross and Crown!

Selection_007Another advertisement from the 1912 Universalist Register was for the “Cross and Crown” system of pins and accessories, to award Sunday School participation. You still see these for sale in old-fashioned church supply stores, but while there used to be named versions for all major denominations, you hardly see any other than Baptists today; the generic “attendance” variety prevail today. And they’re not nearly so refined as the one I saw some years ago: the treasured possessions of elder Universalists, kept from childhood. bitb_cross-and-crown

Back in 2002, I bought up the last of the Universalist “Cross and Crown” pins from Whittemore’s, a much loved but now defunct New England church supply house.

By Scott Wells

Scott Wells, 46, is a Universalist Christian minister doing Universalist theology and church administration hacks in Washington, D.C.

2 comments

  1. The Universalist Church in Muncie has a “Cross and Crown” Sunday School banner, with the congregation’s old name “St John’s Universalist Church”.

  2. First Parish Church in Dorchester MA (Unitarian) had Sunday School pins when I was there; I appropriated one for myself.

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