Edward Everett Hale (1822-1909) was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1822.  Hale’s father was Nathan Hale (1784-1863), a newspaper owner and editor, and his great-uncle was Nathan Hale (1755-1776), a Revolutionary War hero executed for espionage.  Hale attended Boston Latin School and graduated at age thirteen.  He then went to Harvard College and later Harvard Divinity School, and became a Unitarian minister in 1842.  He was first a pastor at the Church of Unity in Worcester, Massachusetts, before becoming the pastor at the South Congregational Church in Boston in 1856, where he preached until 1899.  From 1903 until his death he served as chaplain to the United States Senate.



Hale wrote many short stories during his lifetime, most notably “The Man Without a Country”, which appeared in The Atlantic Monthly in 1863 and was meant to raise support for the Union during the Civil War.  In addition, he published books on many topics from history to theology.  He oversaw the production of the Christian Examiner, owned by his father before him, and founded Old and New Magazine, in which his story “Ten Times One” appeared in 1870.  This story, which included the quote “Look up and not down, look forward and not back, look out and not in, lend a hand,” was the basis for his founding of the nonsectarian Ten Times One Clubs and the Lend a Hand Clubs.  The Lend a Hand Society of Boston still provides emergency financial assistance to the needy in the Greater Boston area.



Hale also served as Secretary of the Soldier’s Memorial Society and became a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1904. He died in 1909 at his home in Roxbury, Massachusetts.