In the field of religion the SCRC holds important material on the development of the Methodist discipline and an impressive number of the denomination's conference reports. As well there is a considerable amount of material on religious and Utopian communities such as the collections on the Oneida Community and Shakers. The Oneida collection is probably more complete than any existing in a public institution anywhere. The Shakers are represented by approximately three hundred titles among which may be found all but a very few of the important printed works on this celibate communitarian sect.
Notable works in this field also include the writings of Charles Fourier and Albert Brisbane, works on the communities at Skaneateles, New York as well as Brook Farm in Harvard and Hopedale in Massachusetts. A basic group of titles by and about Thomas Lake Harris and his Brotherhood of the New Life are also included in the collection. As well, the SCRC holds the rare first edition as well as a later issue of the biography of Jemima Wilkinson-- the first female in America to found a religious organization-- written by David Hudson and published in Geneva, New York in 1821.
Corresponding important manuscript collections in this area include the Gerrit, Peter, and Greene Smith papers, papers of the Grace Episcopal Church, the manuscripts of the Methodist collection, and others.