Attorney Edward A. Dickinson headed the E.A. Dickinson & Associates, Manufacturers' Representatives office in Milwaukee in the 1950's and 1960's. A member of the Plymouth Congregational Church in Milwaukee, Dickinson in June 1955 was appointed by the Joint Board of that church to a study committee on the merger of the Congregational Christian Churches and the Evangelical and Reformed Church; within this group he chaired the subcommittee on the study of doctrine and organization of the Evangelical and Reformed Church. Dickinson was also at one time vice chairman and then president of the Layman's Fellowship of the Wisconsin Congregational Conference, an organization which opposed the merger proposal. The file gathered by Dickinson in the course of the study committee's work constitutes the present collection; it is strongly oriented in opposition to the merger.
The churches involved in the merger both had a long history in America. The Congregational Church in America traces its origin to the Pilgrim Fathers and later streams of Puritan immigrants to the continent. They practiced autonomy in their church life, although a spirit of cooperation gradually developed and the church formed unions with other denominations. The Evangelical and Reformed Church's membership in the United States dates back to the eighteenth-century with the immigration of Reformed Church members from Germany and Switzerland.
The Reformed Church later formed a union with Evangelical members who settled in the Mississippi Valley. Originally proposed in 1942, the possibility of merger between the Congregational and Evangelical and Reformed denominations had been studied and set aside. Congregationalists feared the loss of independence, and some believed that the merger was more an effort to convert them to the Evangelical and Reformed religion than to unite the two churches. Initially the opposition was scattered, but in 1947 some Congregationalists organized the League to Uphold Congregational Principles. Within three years open discussion of the merger ceased and the matter seemed to be closed. In 1954, however, the original questions were revived when the executive groups of the two denominations began a new effort to effect the merger. The following years were spent in study and discussion, with the first uniting synod held in 1957. The merger was completed in 1962 creating the United Church of Christ.
