Get Connected

by William McCarthy, Processing and Reference Archivist

While the staff of the CLA have been working from home, we have continued to remain engaged with our collections even while separated from them. These posts will highlight some of our less well-known collections. Please note that the collections highlighted are not available online unless otherwise noted.

Today’s highlight will be MS4981, the Edward Franklin Williams papers, 1859-1918. The Williams papers were given to us from the Chicago Theological Seminary in 2011 and 2015. The Amistad Research Center in Tulane also has a collection on Williams which you can view by going HERE.

Edward Franklin Williams was born in Uxbridge, Massachusetts on July 22, 1832. He graduated from Yale in 1856 after which he spent three years teaching in Connecticut and Massachusetts. When the Civil War broke out, Williams joined the Christian Commission where he distributed religious literature, medical aid, and various supplies to Union troops. After the war, the Congregational church at Whitinsville, Massachusetts ordained him on October 17, 1866. After Whitinsville, Williams moved to Illinois and served the Tabernacle Congregational Church from 1869-1873. In 1873, he moved on to a pastorate at the South Congregational Church in Chicago, Illinois from until 1891. Afterwards, Williams was a delegate to the International Congregational Council in London, England. He spent several years abroad and studied at the University of Berlin after which he published “Christian Life in Germany” in 1896. Williams served as the Editor of the Congregationalist, Director of the Chicago Missionary Society, and president of the Chicago Tract Society which published and distributed Christian literature. Williams died in Evanston, Illinois on May 26, 1919.

This collection contains sermons, notes, and lectures across Williams life. One item of note is two diaries that cover Williams' life from 1959-1965, the earliest chronicling his time while at Princeton Theological Seminary. We also have numerous sermons that cover a variety of topics, from “The Law of Self-Sacrifice”, “Does God Care?”, and “Waiting for the Moving of the Water”. The final section of the collection contains various lectures that Williams gave while working at Beloit College. Some of the topics covered include “Christian and Medieval Ethics”, “Four Socratic Schools and Stoicism”, “Christianity and Philosophy of the Middle Age”, and “Greek Morality and Ethics”. You can see from his lectures that he was a passionate philosopher and took his teaching seriously. Research into his papers would be fruitful for anyone interested in philosophy, religion, the Civil War, and more!

The finding aid for this collection can be found HERE. If you have any interest in viewing this collection once the library reopens, or you have any other CLA related questions, do not hesitate to reach out to us at ref@14beacon.org. Stay safe and have a great day!