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clergyman reformer sociologist
Samuel Warren Dike was born on February 13, 1839 in Thompson, Connecticut, United States. He was a descendant of Captain Anthony Dike who came to Plymouth Colony on the ship Ann in 1623, he was the son of George Dike, a farmer, and Hannah Waters (Snow) Dike.
After preparation at Nichols Academy, Dike graduated from Williams College with high scholastic honors in 1863.
For two years he studied at the Theological Institute of Connecticut, East Windsor Hill (now Hartford Theological Seminary), and for one year at Andover Theological Seminary, from which he graduated in 1866.
Dike was ordained to the Congregational ministry in 1869 at West Randolph, Vermont, and served as acting pastor at Pomtret, Connecticut, 1866-67; as pastor at West Randolph, Vermont, 1868-77; and at Royalton, Vermont, 1879-82.
During his year at Andover Seminary he became interested in the study of social subjects, especially the family. He wrote editorially on this theme in the Vermont Chronicle and in 1881 gave one of the Boston Monday Lectures on “Facts as to Divorce in New England. ” That same day the New England Divorce Reform League was organized. It became the National Divorce Reform League in 1885 and still later the National League for the Protection of the Family. Dike was creator, corresponding secretary, and mainspring of the League from 1881 until his death.
The annual reports of the League written by him constitute the history of the movement for the betterment of the family. He brought such pressure to bear on Congress that Carroll D. Wright, United States commissioner of labor, gathered and published a valuable mass of statistics and information in his Report on Marriage and Divorce in the United Staes, 1867-86 (1889).
Dike did an immense amount of research for this publication. Before colleges, theological seminaries, and scientific societies he lectured on the same theme.
He wrote extensively for periodicals, including the Andover Review, Atlantic Monthly, Princeton Review, and Political Science Quarterly. Many of his articles were reissued in pamphlet form.
He powerfully influenced legislation for stricter marriage and divorce laws and achieved international reputation as an authority on them. He devised the Home Department of the Sunday-school. With Bishop Potter, Seth Low, Washington Gladden, and others he formed a “Sociological Group” which did much first-hand work in the study of “present-day problems. ”
Dike had a large philosophic grasp of the complicated social problem of the development and changes in the American family. He combined to an unusual degree patience in the quest for facts with a firm grasp of the whole social situation, a combination in which very few of his more distinguished successors have equaled him.
After taking up the work of the League he resided in Royalton, Vermont, until 1887 and then in Auburndale, Massachusetts, until his death.
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Dike was clear in his judgments, tenacious of his opinions, firm in his faith, but modest and self-effacing in his disposition and generous in his relations with his colleagues.
Dike married Augusta Margaret Smith of Montpelier, Vermont, on October 29, 1872.
