Beacon Street Blog

Don't forget to let us know if you'll be joining us for tomorrow's lunchtime lecture.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"355","attributes":{"alt":"Cotton Mather, ca. 1700","class":"media-image","style":"width: 135px; height: 175px; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px;","title":"Cotton Mather, ca. 1700","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]Cotton Mather will forever be a fascinating man in the history of American culture, politics, literature, science, and religion. He even coined the term "American" as a distinctive type of cultural perspective. Michael Hall titled his biography of Cotton's father The Last American Puritan, and in this talk Rick Kennedy will look at ways in which Cotton Mather was the first American Evangelical. Richard Lovelace of Gordon-Conwell Seminary wrote from a European perspective about theology and piety in his book, The American Pietism of Cotton Mather: Origins of American Evangelicalism (1979). Professor Kennedy, on the other hand, will talk about the origins of American Evangelicalism in the ways Cotton Mather responded to the local culture and politics of Boston, Cambridge, and Charlestown between 1686 and 1707.

Rick Kennedy has published extensively on contemporaries of Cotton Mather — Thomas and William Brattle, Increase Mather, Charles Morton, Benjamin Colman — for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, the New England Quarterly, and the American Antiquarian Society. Presently he is writing a short biography of Mather and working with a group of editors in an international project to publish Cotton Mather's massive Biblia Americana. He is professor of history at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California.

Wednesday, March 6th
12:00 - 1:00 pm

Program begins promptly at noon.

Free.
Register through SurveyMonkey.

mezzotint portrait of Cotton Mather (ca. 1700) by Peter Pelham courtesy Wikimedia Commons

Your church anniversary is coming and the Congregational Library can help you make a difference. Learn to research and tell your unique history for maximum impact. Energize your church members and your greater community with your stories. Create a treasure for present and future generations.

Presenters:

• Bonnie Hurd Smith – Keynote speaker
  acclaimed historian, author, and marketer
• Dr. J. Mary Luti – Liturgy and Worship Services
  teacher, vibrant and creative liturgical leader currently at Andover Newton Theological Seminary
• Rob Cooper & Pam Pacelli – Film & Video
  Verissima Productions, award-winning documenters of historical events and stories of individuals & beloved places
• Peggy Bendroth – Writing Your Church History
  historian, author, and executive director of the Congregational Library
• Jessica Steytler – Basics of Church Records Stewardship
  archivist of the Congregational Library
• Claudette Newhall – Church Librarians Roundtable
  librarian of the Congregational Library

$65 per person, includes lunch

Take advantage of your church's membership benefits by bringing up to two free attendees. If your church doesn't have a membership, sign up for one now.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"361","attributes":{"alt":"First Church Shrewsbury spire","class":"media-image","style":"width: 117px; height: 114px; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px;","title":"First Church Shrewsbury spire","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]Download the registration form.
Registration deadline: Saturday, March 9th

Saturday, March 16th
9:30 am - 2:30 pm

First Congregational Church of Shrewsbury
19 Church Road
Shrewsbury, MA 01545

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"363","attributes":{"alt":"Jessica in the reading room","class":"media-image","style":"width: 150px; height: 200px; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px;","title":"Jessica in the reading room","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]Those who've been looking at the workshop options at our Church Anniversary Event next month may have noticed that I am teaching a class called "Basics of Church Records Stewardship". So, what is this class? It's essentially what was billed as the Records Management class in previous years, however, we felt that the name didn't properly describe the breadth of topics that I cover. To go with the spiffed-up title, I have spent the last few months revising the resources that are shared at that class.

I will remind our readers if your conference, association, or club gathering is planning an event and needs more content, I welcome the opportunity to be part of the scheduled activities. Please contact me if you would like to arrange for this sometime in the next few months.

-Jessica

If you haven't been following the Explore Congregational Church History group on Facebook, you've been missing out on some interesting discussions.

One recent thread that caught my eye is about the earliest ordinations of women by Congregational societies. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"366","attributes":{"alt":"Antoinette Brown Blackwell","title":"Antoinette Brown Blackwell","height":221,"width":200,"style":"width: 120px; height: 133px; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 5px 10px;","class":"media-image media-element file-media-original"},"link_text":null}]]It mentions Antoinette Brown Blackwell, of course, but the focus is more on the unsung women of the ministry, many of whom were itinerant evangelists by necessity. Among them are Mary Moreland, ordained in 1889, and Rev. Dr. Sarah Dixon who served in several churches across northeastern Massachusetts.

As best I can tell, it's likely that most of the above forty-seven women ordained by Congregational Councils were very good preachers. The words of the Old Testament prophet Joel that, "your sons and your daughters shall prophesy" [Joel 2:28; Acts 2:17] were sometimes quoted by Congregationalists in that period, to support their view that women should be allowed to be ordained. In contrast, my impression is that back then, it sometimes was more difficult for women to be accepted in the pastoral role of ministry, which may have been a reason why some of those early ordained women served as traveling evangelists.

It turns out that we have one of Rev. Dixon's sermons in our collection, as well as a number of writings by and about Rev. Blackwell.

Do you have a favorite female minister? Would you like to learn more about them? Join in the discussion.

--Robin

portrait of Antoinette Brown Blackwell from Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography via Wikimedia Commons

Your church anniversary is coming and the Congregational Library can help you make a difference. Learn to research and tell your unique history for maximum impact. Energize your church members and your greater community with your stories. Create a treasure for present and future generations.

Presenters:

• Bonnie Hurd Smith – Keynote speaker
  acclaimed historian, author, and marketer
• Dr. J. Mary Luti – Liturgy and Worship Services
  teacher, vibrant and creative liturgical leader currently at Andover Newton Theological Seminary
• Rob Cooper & Pam Pacelli – Film & Video
  Verissima Productions, award-winning documenters of historical events and stories of individuals & beloved places
• Peggy Bendroth – Writing Your Church History
  historian, author, and executive director of the Congregational Library
• Jessica Steytler – Basics of Church Records Stewardship
  archivist of the Congregational Library
• Claudette Newhall – Church Librarians Roundtable
  librarian of the Congregational Library

$65 per person, includes lunch

Take advantage of your church's membership benefits by bringing up to two free attendees. If your church doesn't have a membership, sign up for one now.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"361","attributes":{"alt":"First Church Shrewsbury spire","class":"media-image","style":"width: 117px; height: 114px; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px;","title":"First Church Shrewsbury spire","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]Download the registration form.

Saturday, March 16th
9:30 am - 2:30 pm

First Congregational Church of Shrewsbury
19 Church Road
Shrewsbury, MA 01545

The Congregational Library will be closed on Monday, January 18th in observance of Presidents' Day.

All of our online resources will be available as usual. If you have questions for the staff, please send an email, leave a voicemail, or use our website's contact form, and we'll get back to you when we return to the office next week.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"370","attributes":{"alt":"Mount Rushmore","class":"media-image","style":"width: 320px; height: 240px;","title":"Mount Rushmore","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]

photograph of Mount Rushmore by Sfmontyo via Wikimedia Commons

Each year the Congregational Library joins with the Boston Athenæum in offering a fellowship for research into American religious history utilizing the collections of both institutions.

The 2013 award includes a stipend of $1,500 for a residency of twenty days (four weeks) and includes a year's memberships to the Boston Athenæum and to the Congregational Library.

Applicants must be U.S. citizens or foreign nationals holding the appropriate U.S. government documents.

Applications are due by April 15, 2013.

For further information, see our scholarships page.

[]Cotton Mather will forever be a fascinating man in the history of American culture, politics, literature, science, and religion. He even coined the term "American" as a distinctive type of cultural perspective. Michael Hall titled his biography of Cotton's father The Last American Puritan, and in this talk Rick Kennedy will look at ways in which Cotton Mather was the first American Evangelical. Richard Lovelace of Gordon-Conwell Seminary wrote from a European perspective about theology and piety in his book, The American Pietism of Cotton Mather: Origins of American Evangelicalism (1979). Professor Kennedy, on the other hand, will talk about the origins of American Evangelicalism in the ways Cotton Mather responded to the local culture and politics of Boston, Cambridge, and Charlestown between 1686 and 1707.

Rick Kennedy has published extensively on contemporaries of Cotton Mather — Thomas and William Brattle, Increase Mather, Charles Morton, Benjamin Colman — for the Colonial Society of Massachusetts, the New England Quarterly, and the American Antiquarian Society. Presently he is writing a short biography of Mather and working with a group of editors in an international project to publish Cotton Mather's massive Biblia Americana. He is professor of history at Point Loma Nazarene University in San Diego, California.

Wednesday, March 6th
12:00 - 1:00 pm

Program begins promptly at noon.

Free.
Register through SurveyMonkey.

mezzotint portrait of Cotton Mather (ca. 1700) by Peter Pelham courtesy Wikimedia Commons

[]Last week, OCLC announced that it would be teaming up with FamilySearch International to improve genealogical research for both organizations.

OCLC and FamilySearch International, the largest genealogy organization in the world, have signed an agreement that will enrich WorldCat and FamilySearch services with data from both organizations to provide users with more resources for improved genealogy research.

Under this new partnership, OCLC will incorporate data from FamilySearch's catalog of genealogical materials into WorldCat, and FamilySearch will use OCLC cataloging services to continue to catalog its collections in WorldCat. FamilySearch will also use the WorldCat Search API to incorporate WorldCat results into search results returned by FamilySearch genealogy services.

"We're excited to see information about FamilySearch holdings more broadly circulated, and to inform our own patrons about genealogical holdings available outside our network," said Jake Gehring, FamilySearch's Director of Data Operations.

"This combination of genealogical and bibliographic resources will be of enormous benefit to librarians and library users as well as genealogists," said Jay Jordan, OCLC President and CEO. "OCLC and FamilySearch are organizations with similar goals — to connect people to knowledge and information through cooperation. We look forward to working with FamilySearch."

Both WorldCat and FamilySearch have a long history of connecting people to information, so this partnership will undoubtedly strengthen the services they both provide. If you're interested in genealogy, go check them out.

There is still plenty of time to register for tomorrow's Brown Bag Lunch lecture. Please let us know if you plan to attend so that we can provide enough seats and beverages.

Early African Americans in Congregational, Reformed, and Presbyterian Churches

[]This discussion will address African American affiliation with northern Congregational, Dutch Reformed, and Presbyterians churches during the eighteenth century. Although these three denominations were each part of the "Reformed" tradition, levels of black affiliation in these churches varied significantly. Many blacks were active and willing participants in Congregational churches, but few blacks affiliated with Dutch Reformed and Presbyterian churches in the same period. What accounts for these differences and what does this information suggest about the histories of enslaved and free blacks in the North?

Richard J. Boles is an advanced Ph.D. candidate at The George Washington University. His dissertation, "Dividing the Faith: The Rise of Racially Segregated Northern Churches, 1730-1850", examines the transition from racially diverse churches during the early eighteenth century to separate Indian and black congregations by the early nineteenth century. Mr. Boles previously completed a BA and a MA in history at Boston College. He has received fellowships from the Gilder Lehrman Institute of American History and the Massachusetts Historical Society, as well as being last year's ACA / Boston Athenaeum fellowship scholar.

Tuesday, February 5th
12:00 - 1:00 pm

Program begins promptly at noon.

Free.
Register through SurveyMonkey.

painting The Lord Is My Shepherd (ca. 1863) by Eastman Johnson courtesy of Google Art Project and the Smithsonian American Art Museum via Wikimedia Commons

"Are not the African slaves among us the poor, the strangers, the fatherless, who are oppressed and vexed, and sold for silver? And will not God visit and punish such oppression? Are you willing to be instruments of bringing judgments and ruin on this land, and on yourselves and families, rather than let the oppressed go out free?"

— Samuel Hopkins, A dialogue concerning
the slavery of the Africans, p.65

January 1st marked the 150th anniversary of the President Lincoln's delivery of the Emancipation Proclamation. Nationwide, commemoration of the anniversary has included a website dedicated to the history of the proclamation put up by the National Archives with images of the original draft, a PBS documentary series exploring of the lives of prominent abolitionists, and a limited edition stamp put out by the United States Postal Service.

As special attention is paid to the Emancipation Proclamation on this anniversary, it affords a welcome opportunity to delve deeper into the history of slavery and the abolitionist movement in America. At the Congregational Library and Archive, we are fortunate to hold many documents that illustrate the debate over slavery as it happened, from the colonial era, up through the Civil War. One document of particular interest is a pamphlet, written by Samuel Hopkins, entitled A dialogue concerning the slavery of the Africans: shewing it to be the duty and interest of the American states to emancipate all their African slaves: with an address to the owners of such slaves. (The pamphlet was originally published in 1776; the library holds a later edition, printed in 1785.)

Hopkins, a Congregationalist minister, studied under Jonathan Edwards and later rose to prominence as a theologian and an early advocate for ending slavery. He spent much of his career preaching at the First Congregational Church of Newport, Rhode Island and from that pulpit, he began to denounce slavery. Notably, under Hopkins direction, the congregation voted to exclude slave holders in 1784. His pamphlet against slavery stands out as one of the first anti-slavery writings by a Congregationalist minister giving it an important place in the history of Congregationalism as well as the history of the abolitionist movement. While Hopkins died in 1803, sixty years before the Emancipation Proclamation, as a pioneer of the abolitionist cause, his contributions should not be forgotten.

-Steve

[]The debate on gun control that is now taking place in America makes me wonder about the laws the Puritan founders of Massachusetts enacted regarding guns and gun safety. Were restrictions on weapons really looser in the earliest days?

The Puritans were fully aware of the challenging environment in which they lived, so they embraced not only the right but also the necessity of bearing arms. The legislature voted on May 29, 1644, that "all inhabitants" (even including sailors) "are to have armes in their houses alwayes ready fixt for service."

But it turns out they were so serious about public safety they passed serious gun control legislation. These measures included:

No shooting guns for the fun of it after the night watch was in place:

Further, it is ordered, that if any pson shall shoote of any peece after the watch is sett, hee shall forfeiet 40s, or if the Court shall iudge him vnable, then to be whipped; the second fault to be punished by the Court as an offence of an higher nature. (April 12, 1631) [Massachusetts Records, I, 85]

No loaded weapons allowed openly in populated areas:

It is ordered, that the capt & officers shall take especiall care to search all peeces that are brought into the ffeild for being charged, & that noe person whatsoeuer shall att any time charge any peece of service with bulletts or shott, other then for defence of their howses, or att comaund from the capt, vpon such penallty as the Court shall thinke meete to inflict. (July 3, 1632) [I, 98]

Weapon size and capacity to be regulated:

no pecces shalbe alowed for serviceable, in our trained bands, but such as are ether full musket boare, or basterd musket at the least, & that none should be under three foote 9 inches, nor any above foure foote 3 inches in length... (October 1, 1645) [II, 134-135]

When publicly procured guns were resold to citizens, an account to be submitted to the Auditor General:

Itt is ordered by this Courte, that ye surveyor gennerall shall hereby have power to sell all the countryes armes vnto any persons inhabiting within this collony, & to give an accompt of all such armes sould by him vnto the auditor gennerall. (October 18, 1645) [III, 52]

Heavier arms unavailable to citizens for any reason whatsoever:

[No] selling or alienating any of the ordinance, or the great artilliry, or any the appurtenances thereof, vpon any pretence whatsoeuer, without speciall order of the Generall Court. (May 22, 1650) [IV-1, 5]

No sale of gunpowder to anyone outside Massachusetts:

It is ordred, that whosoever shall transport any powdr out of ye iurisdiction without leave & licence first obtained from some two of our honored magistrates, shall forfeit for every such ofience wich shalbe so transporting;.. [II, 136]

And the Bay Colony Puritan government confiscated arms when circumstances seemed to require, as in the Wheelwright - Hutchinson scare in 1637. (November 21, 1637 - I, 212).

Yes, you could own a gun in Puritan Massachusetts, for hunting and defense. But restrictions applied, and penalties were heavy. Makes sense to me.

-David M. Powers

photograph of "The Puritan" statue, part of the Ellen Phillips Samuel Memorial in Philadelphia, PA, courtesy of user Smallbones via Wikimedia Commons, released under a Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication license

[]There are so many interesting things popping up on the internet thanks to people scanning manuscripts. Our latest find is 17th century naval administrator, Samuel Pepys's diary, which he began in 1660 and continued for the next ten years. The Pepys diary site originally launched in 2003 and they ran an entry a day up through May 2012. This month they have relaunched the revised site to once again run through an entry a day. The entries are annotated to help clarify details that would have been common knowledge, either about Pepys's life or London in the 1660s. Other site features besides the annotations are his letters, articles about Pepys and his works and an encyclopedia covering many aspects of the man and his world.

I love this site for a lot of reasons:

1. Generally, diaries are a fascinating window to a person (famous or otherwise) moreso than secondary texts that carry inevitable filters and biases.
2. This project means that an otherwise difficult to use historical resource is universally available.
3. The site spawned community participation in writing articles, a Yahoo discussion group, and probably the annotations for the individual entries.
4. The community has generated so much detail, it is stunning. I'm still giddy about the annotations. For example, the January 7 1660 entry has about twenty links that may simply explain who a named person is, a location, include a biographical note and image of prominent people (like his wife), and it just goes on and on. I recommend taking some time and exploring.

Our own work here at the library is just starting off with our New England's Hidden Histories program, which provides access to colonial era manuscripts. I hope that after ten years, we will have emulated the Pepys site and generated a vibrant community that contributes and shares its knowledge. In the meantime, please take some time to visit our budding digital projects. We also have several original/analog diaries in our stacks, searchable through our online catalog.

-Jessica

portrait of Samuel Pepys (1666) by John Hayls courtesy of the National Gallery, London via Wikimedia Commons, image in the public domain

When we were putting together our recent holiday series, we just had too many great quotes to choose from, so we kept this one in mind for today.

[]"Once you learn to read, you will be forever free."

— Frederick Douglass

While this sentiment can easily be taken metaphorically, Douglass also meant it literally. Taught to read by his master's wife, he continued to educate himself in secret, and eventually passed that knowledge on to dozens of other slaves in the area.

The eloquence of Douglass's writing and speaking was integral to increasing support for both the abolition of slavery and the women's suffrage movement. And Douglass took full advantage of his freedom once he had it; based on the success of his autobiography, he traveled extensively throughout Europe and the northern United States. He was even the first African American nominated for the vice presidency of the U.S. in 1872, though he never formally accepted the nomination or campaigned for the office.

daguerreotype of Frederick Douglass, ca. 1855 courtesy of the Metropolitan Museum of Art via Wikimedia Commons

There are exciting things afoot in Hawaii. The Hawaiian language Bible — first translated by Hiram Bingham, other missionaries from the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, and native Hawaiians — has gotten a makeover for modern readers.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"389","attributes":{"alt":"Hawaiian Bible, then and now -- pages from the first book of Samuel from 1839 and 2013","class":"media-image","height":"248","style":"width: 200px; height: 169px; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px;","title":"Hawaiian Bible, then and now -- pages from the first book of Samuel from 1839 and 2013","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"294"}}]]From the publisher's website:

After ten-plus years, significant funding support from many foundations and individuals, and the work of dozens of scholars, teachers, and volunteers, Ka Baibala Hemolele is available in the new orthography, which uses diacritics. It is the first time that the Hawaiian language bible has been formatted and printed with diacritical marking. Baibala Hemolele — the Hawaiian Bible Project, a project of Partners in Development Foundation, initially began to electronically preserve the 1839, 1868, and 1994 printings of the Hawaiian Bible, but grew into a complete editing of the Bible to embrace the new orthography.

The original translation, completed in 1839, played a significant role in the development of the Hawaiian language as a written language, and it continues to be a major linguistic, cultural, and spiritual resource for the Hawaiian community and Hawaiian language students throughout the world.

Download the full press release.

You can learn more about the history of the text and the drive behind this revision on the PIDF website. They have also made searchable digital versions of the earlier editions available in a dedicated digital archive as part of Ulukau, the Hawaiian electronic library.

To learn more about the early American Board and the missionaries who first translated the Bible into Hawaiian, take a spin through our digital exhibit, Of Faith and Courage: The History of the ABCFM, or search our catalog. Aloha.

We are pleased to announce the availability of four new collections:

• Delaware Valley Association of Congregational Christian Churches. Records, 1955-1963.

• Fulton, NY. First Congregational Church. Records 1882-ca.2000.

• Winthrop, MA. Union Congregational Church. Records, 1903-2011.

• Worcester, MA. Adams Square Congregational Association. Records, 1898-2011.

These collections are new acquisitions for the library and were part of proof-of-concept testing of a new archival standard. Those of you used to looking at our finding guides will notice some differences with these collections. This is because we are implementing a new industry-wide standard which holds that in certain circumstances it is allowable, and even preferable, to value access to collections over providing detailed description and context. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"158","attributes":{"alt":"processing a collection","class":"media-image","height":"154","style":"width: 185px; height: 154px; float: left; margin: 8px 10px 5px 0px;","title":"processing a collection","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"185"}}]]This precept is supported by various surveys, formal and informal, in which researchers and patrons say they prefer to know that a collection exists and have a rough indication of what the collection contains to waiting a longer time without knowledge of the collection's existence so that they can have a finding guide which contains a detailed biographical or historical note and container list.

This standard, known as "More Product, Less Process" (or more efficiently as MPLP) has been implemented at institutions across the country, and has had the cumulative effect of getting archival collections in front of researchers faster. These four collections represent the Congregational Library's foray into implementing this new standard. We welcome feedback from our researchers as to the guides' effectiveness, as well as any questions you might have about these collections or this new standard.

--Sari

You may be familiar with author and historian Eve LaPlante from her book about Samuel Sewall, Salem Witch Judge, which was featured at one of the first installments of our Brown Bag Lunch series back in 2008. Now she has two more books coming out, both focused on members of the Alcott family. She'll be speaking about them at the Hingham Public Library this coming Sunday.

Afternoon with the Author: Eve LaPlante

The first "Afternoon with the Author" of the new year takes place on Sunday, January 13, at 3 p.m., when Eve LaPlante visits the library to introduce two simultaneously published books: Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother and My Heart Is Boundless: Writings of Abigail May Alcott.

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Louisa May Alcott was the most successful author of her time, earning considerably more than any of her male contemporaries. Her classic Little Women has never been out of print since its release nearly 150 years ago. Biographers have consistently attributed Louisa's uncommon success to the influence of her father, the outspoken idealist Bronson Alcott. Any influence Abigail May Alcott might have had on her daughter's progressive thinking and independent spirit went largely unremarked.

Eve LaPlante, a descendant of the May family, has just published two books that explode the perception of Abigail as a self-effacing housewife. Marmee & Louisa: The Untold Story of Louisa May Alcott and Her Mother, is a dual biography that draws from newly uncovered diaries, letters, and personal papers to reveal Abigail in all her complexity. In this telling, Louisa’s real-life "Marmee" forms the intellectual and emotional center of her daughter’s world. Abigail, whose difficult life both inspired and served as warning to her daughters, pushed Louisa to excel at writing and to fulfill her unconventional dreams.

An Afternoon with the Author is part of a free series presented in partnership with Buttonwood Books and designed to connect writers with readers.

Please join us for coffee 15 minutes before the start of the program.

Sunday, January 13
3 p.m.

For more details, take a look at the event page on the Hingham Public Library website.

I spent this past weekend in New Orleans, at the meeting of the American Historical Association and the American Society of Church History. When I left my house in Boston, in the wee hours of Thursday morning, the temperature was a balmy 1 degrees. I got to New Orleans later that day and heard nonstop complaints about how cold it was — in the 40s. I passed people on the street dressed for a winter apocalypse, in fur-lined parkas, knit caps, and mittens, while I strolled around with my coat unzipped looking utterly out of place.

Any gathering of historians by the thousands is worth many, many wry observations and as time permits I'll have more to say about what I learned down in New Orleans, but for the immediate purposes of this blog, I want to write about the book I read on the plane going down to New Orleans.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"395","attributes":{"alt":"\"Sarah Osborn's World\" cover image","class":"media-image","style":"width: 150px; height: 230px; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 5px 10px;","title":"\"Sarah Osborn's World\" cover image","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]Sarah Osborn's World, written by University of Chicago historian Catherine Brekus, is the story of a remarkable eighteenth-century woman. Osborn lived most of her life in relative obscurity in Newport, Rhode Island, battling poverty, illness, and personal loss. She was not a politician or a "man of letters", and we would know nothing of her life except for one thing: she wrote voluminously. Sarah Osborn left behind a personal memoir, a lengthy diary in many volumes (most but not all of which has survived), and many personal letters, all of which Brekus has transcribed and carefully pieced together into a richly-detailed, beautifully written, and in many ways haunting account.

It is not an easy one to understand. To those of us who have grown up in a world emphasizing self-esteem and personal freedom, Sarah Osborn's personal faith is simply baffling. God is at the center of her life in every respect, which means that she accepts the untimely death of her first husband and her son, as well as suffering caused by rheumatoid arthritis and financial catastrophe as God's will for her. This is not, Brekus explains, because Sarah Osborn was weak or unbalanced or needed a good feminist talking-to; it was because in the world that she inhabited, the alternative would have been impossible to bear. Better to accept a God who brings suffering as well as favor than to live in a world without order or meaning. Better to allow for a few moral loose ends than to lose God's powerful and compassionate companionship. You or I may not see the alternatives this starkly — our world today provides us with a lot more cushioning from disaster than Sarah's did — but if we simply dismiss her as a religious fanatic we are the poorer for it.

The story goes far beyond one individual life, however. Sarah Osborn's World is one of the best books about the American evangelical tradition that I have read. It brings home the spiritual passion in this movement's formative stages, and its transformative appeal to all kinds of different people, most of whom left almost no historical records—the women who met for prayer under Sarah Osborn's leadership and the African Americans (slave and free) who crowded into her parlor for Bible study and prayer.

Many readers will find Sarah Osborn's world absolutely foreign, maybe even off-putting. Her piety was stark and demanding and she was blind to many of the social evils of her day, including for a time slavery. Few of us would want her for a best friend, let alone a prayer partner. But in other ways, Sarah Osborn's relationship with God is utterly familiar. It resonates in churches today, afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted, and sometimes calling us to take the hard road with gratitude and grace. This is what history does, of course, introducing us to other lives and other worlds, and helping us to see our own with a deeper and more compassionate understanding.

-Peggy

We've been back in the office since yesterday, but we just couldn't resist the urge to bring you one more dose of inspiration for the week.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"397","attributes":{"alt":"Amelia Earhart","class":"media-image","height":"392","style":"width: 150px; height: 235px; float: right; margin: 0px 0px 5px 10px;","title":"Amelia Earhart","typeof":"foaf:Image","width":"250"}}]]"The most effective way to do it, is to do it."

— Amelia Earhart

There is something to be said for determination and courage. At a time when women were still largely constrained to a few roles in American society, Amelia Earhart ignored or gleefully smashed barriers to pursue her dreams. From her teenage decision to choose a high school based on its superior science program to her aviation career spent setting world records, Earhart defied the limits others tried to put on her.

Congregationalists have a history of changing conventions, as well. They have been at the forefront of social movements like abolition, temperance, and suffrage. They did their best to lead by example, by doing.

It's a new year, a good time for a new start. What will you do?

portrait of Amelia Earhart courtesy of the Library of Congress Prints and Photographs division (digital ID cph.3c12514) via Wikimedia Commons

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"398","attributes":{"alt":"William Ellery Channing","class":"media-image","style":"width: 150px; height: 187px; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px;","title":"William Ellery Channing","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]"Every man is a volume if you know how to read him."

— William Ellery Channing

It has become clichéd to tell people, "My life is an open book," but some people truly are easy to learn about. It's significantly more difficult to do so with those who are no longer living. Unless, that is, there happen to be records of their lives.

Not only do our collections contain a large number of biographies, memoirs, and memorials, but there are also personal and institutional papers. You can learn a lot about people — how they saw the world and how the world saw them — from their correspondence, obituaries and funeral sermons, records of churches they attended, and even books they owned. It takes more interpretation than just reading a journal, but it's often worth the extra time to read between the lines.

As we enter a new year, consider spending some time with our resources. You never who you'll meet or what you might learn about them.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"400","attributes":{"alt":"Harry E. Fosdick","class":"media-image","style":"width: 150px; height: 205px; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px;","title":"Harry E. Fosdick","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]"Life is like a library owned by the author.
In it are a few books which he wrote himself,
but most of them were written for him."

— Harry Emerson Fosdick

Much in the vein of Isaac Newton's oft-quoted "standing on the shoulders of giants", Fosdick acknowledges the modern world's debt to everything that came before.This is especially true in a scholarly archive like ours. We have books and manuscripts dating back several centuries that modern researchers use to create new books of their own.

Writers who use our collections often wind up on our shelves themselves. Some recent examples include:

• Towards world heritage: international origins of preservation edited by Melanie Hall
• Plan of Union and Congregational Churches of Christ in the Middle Atlantic states by Richard H. Taylor
• The American religious experiment : piety and practicality by Clyde Leonard Manschreck and Barbara Brown Zikmund
• A school of the church : Andover Newton across two centuries by Margaret Lamberts Bendroth

If you've written a book using research done at the Congregational Library, let us know in the comments or send us an email. We love to hear where that information ends up.

portrait of Harry Emerson Fosdick (1926) by Underwood & Underwood (New York) from the New York Public Library Digital Gallery collection courtesy of Wikimedia Commons

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"402","attributes":{"alt":"Horace Bushnell","class":"media-image","style":"width: 150px; height: 209px; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px;","title":"Horace Bushnell","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]"The more difficulties one has to encounter, within and without, the more significant and the higher in inspiration his life will be."

— Horace Bushnell

Although we hope that none of our readers are encountering difficulties during the holidays, it's likely that at least a few of you are. Whether you're stuck in traffic, wrangling stubborn relatives, or feeling a little blue, try to remember that all troubles are temporary. Overcoming obstacles can help you reach even greater heights in the future, and allow you to aid others in doing the same.

The Congregational Library will be closed until the new year, but that doesn't mean we'll leave you without new things to read. We hope you'll enjoy this year's series of vacation posts.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"404","attributes":{"alt":"Henry Ward Beecher","class":"media-image","style":"width: 150px; height: 211px; float: left; margin: 0px 10px 5px 0px;","title":"Henry Ward Beecher","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]"A little library, growing larger every year, is an honourable part of a man's history. It is a man's duty to have books. A library is not a luxury, but one of the necessaries of life."

— Henry Ward Beecher

Our library started out very little, with just 56 books donated by the founders from their own collections. Over the years we have grown tremendously, taking that small seed and nurturing it into a much larger set of books, newspapers, manuscripts, and records on a number of subjects. The ever-increasing collections required successively larger spaces until the American Congregational Association finally commissioned our current building in 1898. Now our resources are not just filling our physical spaces, they are expanding into the digital realm as well.

We do consider it our duty to preserve and protect the materials under our care. Not only an obligation to the past, but also to the historians and other researchers to come. Over and over we hear from churches that have lost their early records to fire or flood, and with them unique information about their members and communities. It is our honor to help prevent such tragedies so that future generations can continue to learn from the past.

[[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"406","attributes":{"alt":"idea bubble","class":"media-image","style":"width: 90px; height: 135px; float: left; margin: 5px 10px 5px 0px;","title":"idea bubble","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]I am what one of my professors fondly refers to as a baby librarian (although, perhaps by the last semester of library school I should be considered more of a toddler?). And given that I am both a baby librarian and what is often referred to as a digital native, it only makes sense that I, well, love the internet. The internet, I believe, is a wonderful tool that allows for the democratization of information and scholarship, the freedom of speech, and the ease of sharing ideas. Through a simple search engine query it is possible to discover gems such as:

• The ARDA's denominational family trees
• Previously unrevealed American colonial history
• Materials from the Congregational Library's collection that you can read from the comfort of your own home, or download to your eReader
• View primary source documents created by and about Thomas Jefferson
• Or even virtually attend free online classes at University of California Berkley

And these are all really cool things — but they are not the main reason I love the internet. I love the internet because of this:

On December 10th at roughly 1pm Eastern someone in a Facebook forum posted this:

"You know what would be cool? A blog dedicated to Congregationalism, where various Congregationalists from different churches/traditions/countries were invited to submit blog entries."

At the time, no such blog was to be found. Two hours and 50+ comments later, that blog was born. [[{"type":"media","view_mode":"media_original","fid":"407","attributes":{"alt":"Congregationalism blog header","class":"media-image","style":"width: 250px; height: 53px; float: right; margin: 5px 0px 5px 10px;","title":"Congregationalism blog header","typeof":"foaf:Image"}}]]A group of Congregationalists from disparate portions of the country have come together to start a conversation, learn from each other, and share their experiences with others — and that is why I love the internet. A person can have an idea which sparks something in another person, and those people can come together to produce something new and share it with whomever is interested.

At the time of the writing this post the blog only boasts two entries, so I only have a limited idea of what this blog will become — but I'm excited to watch, and to learn.

--Sari

idea bubble image from "5 Social Media Tips From A Digital Native"