28 Facts About Francis Bellamy

Francis Julius Bellamy was an American Christian socialist Baptist minister and author.

Francis Bellamy is best known for writing the original version of the Pledge of Allegiance in 1892.

Francis Julius Bellamy was born on May 18,1855, in Mount Morris, New York to Rev David Bellamy and Lucy Clark.

Francis Bellamy's family was deeply involved in the Baptist church and both Francis and his father became ministers.

The family moved to Rome, New York, when Francis was only 5.

Francis Bellamy went on to attend the University of Rochester in Rochester, New York, where he studied theology and belonged to the Alpha Delta Phi fraternity.

Francis Bellamy became a Baptist minister as a young man.

Francis Bellamy was very much influenced by the vestiges of the Second Great Awakening.

Francis Bellamy travelled to promote his Baptist faith and lived to be of service to others in his community.

Francis Bellamy's travels brought him to Massachusetts where he penned the "Pledge of Allegiance" for a campaign by the Youth's Companion, a patriotic circular and magazine.

Francis Bellamy "believed in the absolute separation of church and state" and purposefully did not include the phrase "under God" in his pledge.

Francis Bellamy went to speak to a national meeting of school superintendents to promote the celebration; the convention liked the idea and selected a committee of leading educators to implement the program, including the immediate past president of the National Education Association.

Francis Bellamy structured the program around a flag-raising ceremony and his pledge.

The recital was accompanied with a salute to the flag known as the Francis Bellamy salute, described in detail by Francis Bellamy.

Francis Bellamy described his thoughts as he crafted the language of the pledge:.

Francis Bellamy was a leader in the public education movement, the nationalization movement, and the Christian socialist movement.

Francis Bellamy united his grassroots network to start a collective memory activism in 1892.

In 1889, Francis Bellamy served as founding vice president and wrote several articles for the Society of Christian Socialists, a grassroots organization founded in Boston.

Francis Bellamy wrote about the Golden Rule and quoted Bible passages that denounced greed and lust for money.

In 1891, Francis Bellamy was asked to write down this last lecture, which called for a strong government and argued that only the socialist economy could allow both the worker and the owner to practice the golden rule.

On immigration and universal suffrage, Francis Bellamy wrote in the editorial of The Illustrated American, Vol.

Francis Bellamy is known to have spent 19 years working in New York City but it is unclear as to when.

Francis Bellamy believed in high pressure advertising and thought that it could still be truthful at the same time.

Francis Bellamy got fired from his job at Tampa Electric Company on July 15,1931, and applied for and got a similar job at Tampa Gas Company.

Francis Bellamy died in Tampa on August 28,1931, at the age of 76.

Francis Bellamy's cremated remains were brought back to New York and buried in a family plot in a cemetery in Rome, New York.

Francis Bellamy married Harriet Benton in Newark, New York, in 1881.

Francis Bellamy was the cousin of Edward Francis Bellamy most famous for the utopian novel Looking Backward, which inspired the formation of Nationalist Clubs that similarly advocated a certain kind of Christian Socialism.