Conwell, Russell (Herman) (1843–1925)

US lawyer, Baptist minister, and lecturer. Admitted to the bar in 1865, he moved to Minneapolis, Minnesota, where he established a law practice. In 1882 he took charge of the Grace Baptist Church in Philadelphia; his enormous Baptist Temple opened there in 1891. In 1888 the night school he founded eventually became Temple College.

He was born in South Worthington, Massachusetts, and raised on his family farm, which was a station on the Underground Railroad, the escape route for runaway slaves. He volunteered for the Union army and was commissioned as ‘the boy Captain’ at age 19. Severely wounded at the battle of Kenesaw Mountain in June 1864, he was left for dead and later credited the experience with converting him to Christianity. A well-known lecturer on the Chautauqua circuit, his most famous lecture was his optimistic, platitudinous ‘Acres of Diamonds’, which he delivered some 6,000 times, thereby earning millions of dollars that he left to endow Temple College.