Garfield Bromley Oxnam

Garfield Bromley Oxnam (August 14, 1891 – March 12, 1963) was an American social reformer and American bishop in the Methodist Episcopal Church, elected in 1936.

Early life Garfield Bromley Oxnam was born on August 14, 1891, in Los Angeles. His father was a mining engineer and instilled in his son a conservative theology. Oxnam embraced these beliefs in his youth, even describing socialism as "the biggest idiocy ever presented to the public." However, in his early 20s Oxnam gravitated towards Dana W. Bartlett and the movements of the Social Gospel.

Oxnam's political tendencies moved further left at the University of Southern California. Under the tutelage of Progressive teachers Emory S. Bogardus, Rockwell D. Hunt, and James Main Dixon, Oxnam was encouraged to apply his knowledge of social issues in real life settings in Los Angeles. Oxnam became a volunteer Housing Inspector for the Los Angeles Housing Commission and ventured through the poorest districts of Los Angeles, a city that falsely proclaimed to have no slums. He took copious notes from his field work and vowed to use the power of the Church to eradicate the slums in Los Angeles. and eventually presided over the Church of All Nations, a multiethnic Church in Downtown Los Angeles. Through Oxnam's personal surveys, the Church of All Nations was comprised more than 46 nationalities. Oxnam's unprecedented fight for racial inclusion spearheaded the fight for immigrant worker rights in the ethnically diverse Los Angeles. He said the Methodist Church, which preached for greater racial integration, did not do enough in practice to further this cause.

Oxnam advocated for the Americanization of immigrants, but he fought with local Los Angeles organizations like Colonel Leroy Smith and the Better America Foundation over what Americanization truly meant. To Oxnam, the concept of Americanization went far beyond the Better America Foundation's narrow patriotic rhetoric, it embodied the education for citizenship based on social justice and workers' rights.

After Los Angeles Bishop Oxnam (right) with President Harry S. Truman and Ohio Governor Frank Lausche attending the Federal Council of Churches in Columbus, Ohio in 1946 Oxnam left Los Angeles to be a professor of social ethics at Boston University in 1927. One year later he became president of De Pauw University, Greencastle, Indiana, where he was popular among students because he permitted dancing. As President he achieved a high level of national and international recognition, bringing DePauw unprecedented public attention. He stepped down as president upon his election as bishop in 1936, but still remained a prominent public figure. He advocated for progressive Church measures like Christian unity. He said on national television: His son, Robert Fisher Oxnam, was also president of a Methodist-founded university, Drew University, from 1961 to 1974.