William Augustus Muhlenberg

Who was William Augustus Muhlenberg?

William Augustus Muhlenberg was a famous Episcopal clergyman who accomplished many different things in a long life of service to God and others. For example, Muhlenberg is considered not only the father of a unique kind of education in the United States; he was also an early exponent of the Social Gospel, founded St. Luke's Hospital in New York City, and should be seen as an early leader of the liturgical movement in Anglican Christianity. While Muhlenberg's model schools on Long Island had a significant impact on the history of American education, especially by way of the graduates who founded other schools all over the United States, Muhlenberg left his work in secondary education in 1845. It may well be the case that Muhlenberg became so famous for his post-1845 achievements that many students of Episcopal or educational history do not even know of his fame as a schoolmaster, a vocation to which he gave himself heart and soul between 1818 and 1845.