Research Sparks Controversy over Serenity Prayer

It's a short prayer that millions know by heart.
Some of you may even have a coffee cup or a framed print with the full test.

For years, the provenance has been attributed to theologian Reinhold Niebuhr (1892-1971). Research conducted by Fred R. Shapiro, Associate Library Director and lecturer at Yale Law School, however, now puts a big question mark on the prayer's origin.

Link to July 11 New York Times article, "Serenity Prayer Stirs Up Doubt: Who Wrote It?"

Excerpt:
Now, a law librarian at Yale, using new databases of archival documents, has found newspaper clippings and a book from as far back as 1936 that quote close versions of the prayer. The quotations are from civic leaders all over the United States — a Y.W.C.A. leader in Syracuse, a public school counselor in Oklahoma City — and are always, interestingly, by women.

Some refer to the prayer as if it were a proverb, while others appear to claim it as their own poetry. None attribute the prayer to a particular source. And they never mention Reinhold Niebuhr.

"LJ Talks to.....Fred Shapiro". Library Journal, 4/10/2007.

Excerpt: The recently published "Yale Book of Quotations" (LJ 10/15/06) is a compendium of 12,000 quotations drawn from a wide variety of fields, including literature, pop culture, social sciences, sciences, folklore, and others. Compiled by Fred R. Shapiro, associate librarian and researcher at the Yale Law School, the hefty volume has been getting quite a bit of attention in the media—and for good reasons. Its user-friendly format and unique focus on American (rather than global) quotations make it a natural fit for both reference and circulating collections. Perhaps what makes it stand out even more is editor Shapiro’s insatiable appetite for the subject; it took six years to research. After several email exchanges with the busy librarian, it also becomes obvious to LJ's Mirela Roncevic that producing a reference tome is as much of a personal investment as writing any other type of book.