Warren H. Wilson

Warren Hugh Wilson (May 1, 1867 – March 1, 1937) was an American pioneering contributor to early rural sociology and the Country Life Movement; and a leader within the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church. In 1942, the Dorland-Bell School for Girls and the Asheville Farm School for Boys merged and was renamed to Warren Wilson College to honor Warren Hugh Wilson's contributions to rural America.

His published works include twelve books and pamphlets, thirteen periodical articles, seven parts of a series, six addresses, and seventeen surveys. Throughout his career as a pastor and sociologist, he created a model for all Christian denominations with parishes in the countryside.

Early life Warren Wilson was born in Tidioute, Pennsylvania, which is a rural community in northwestern Pennsylvania.

Career After graduating from Oberlin College in 1890, he began to work as the first secretary for the Student Department of the Y.M.C.A. He graduated with his bachelor's degree in divinity in 1894 from the Union Theological Seminary in New York, New York. Wilson served as a founding pastor of Christ Church in the Quaker Hill community in New York. which was a thorough study of the community and considered to be the first sociological study of rural life in America. After receiving his PhD from Columbia University in 1908, he was appointed one of the two superintendents of the Department of Church & Country Life within the Board of Home Missions of the Presbyterian Church. While in this position, he conducted surveys and research on rural churches, promoted rural life conferences, and formed summer school programs for rural pastors across the United States. The Country Church Program (1910) The Church of the Open Country; A Study of the Working Farmer (1911) The Evolution of the Country Community: A Study in Religious Sociology (1912) The Church of the Open Country: A Study of the Church for the Working Farmer (1912) The Evolution of the Country Community (1912) No Need to be Poor in the Country (1912) Community Study by Groups: A Practical Scheme for the Investigation of the Problems of the Large Town Or City Ward from the Point of View of the Church and Its Work (1912) The Revival of Interest in the Country Church (1912) The Church at the Center (1914) At School with the Country Pastor (1914) The Second Missionary Adventure (1915) Rural Education in War (1917) The Farmer's Church (1925) Rural Religion and the Country Church (1927) To the Mountains (1932) The Farmers' Church and the Farmers' College (191?)