Beacon Street Blog

When people think of the First Great Awakening, Jonathan Edwards (1703-1758) is one of the figures most associated with the revivals in the American colonies. While he was a minister in Northampton, Mass., Edwards gained a reputation as a powerful orator and was known for sermons like "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God". After leaving Northampton, Edwards acted as pastor in Stockbridge, Mass., which was a missionary post to the Mahican and Mohawk natives of the area. The following is a portrait of Edwards.

Jonathan Edwards' son, Jonathan Edwards (1745-1801), may be less well known today, but he still had an accomplished career. The younger Edwards became a minister, but he held different opinions than his father, such as opposing slavery. The younger Edwards also wrote on the American Indian languages. The following is an portrait of Jonathan Edwards, the younger, from when he was President of Union College.

For more information please search our online catalog. For the elder, search "Edwards, Jonathan, 1703-1758", and, for the younger, search "Edwards, Jonathan, 1745-1801". For a good biography of the elder Jonathan Edwards, I recommend George M. Marsden's A Short Life of Jonathan Edwards, which I read during my studies at Simmons College.

--Abraham

The following is a portrait taken at a Commission of Nineteen dinner. The commission was convened to analyze and report on the Constitution and By-Laws of the National Council, on the Relations of the Missionary Societies, and on the Secretaryship of the National Council.

The Commission was organized in 1910 and published the Report of the Commission of Nineteen on Polity in 1911. The report was also to be delivered at the 1913 meeting of the National Council in Kansas City.

For more information on the Commission of Nineteen, search the online catalog for "National Council, Commission of Nineteen."

--Abraham

Cornell University's Making of America Collection, a digital library of primary sources related to American social history, is a great resource for researchers. The collection consists of monographs and journal articles from the antebellum period through Reconstruction, and includes high-quality copies of The American Missionary and New Englander and Yale Review among others.

Once on their website, simply click "Browse" to see a full list of journal titles available online! This has been a great resource for me as I work on researching more about the collections I'm processing here.

-Katherine Williamson

As the summer progresses and the weather heats up, I'm sure there will be a little more foot-traffic in the Library. If you happen to stop by, you might see me, Katherine, working away at a table in the Reading Room. I am the newest Simmons student to intern at the Library and am working on a very exciting project. This project, alluded to by Jessica in a previous post, involves the archives' Small Collections.

The "Small Collections" is a series of collections that are, as the title suggests, quite small; more often than not, the collections consist of a single folder. I've been working on identifying potential candidates to be digitized for an online exhibition. The work has been quite exciting, as the collections run the gamut in terms of their geographic location, time period, creator, medium, format, and function.

As this is my third week working on the project, there are still many details to work out; however, I will keep you all up to date on the latest happenings. I don't want to spoil the surprise of the exhibit by revealing what collections will ultimately be included, but, perhaps, in the coming days I'll give you some hints!

-Katherine

The issue of what to do with your ever-growing backlog of images, music, and files on all our computers sometimes feels like a time bomb: how long will they last? How can we save them from the fate of the files on the floppy disks we threw away years ago?  As an archivist, I still feel like we have a long way to go on perfecting this. My mantra is that digital is about access, not preservation. But that mantra in and of itself is flawed. We have to figure it out. From a personal perspective, I've not had a hard copy of any of my own pictures in over 5 or 6 years now.

So what do you do? I'd recommend reviewing what they have to say on these sites:

• Library of Congress's Guidelines for Digital Preservation
• Paradigm's Guidelines

I particularly liked the video on the LC site.

Thank you kindly to Abe for the pointers on these resources.

-Jessica

The company that hosts our online catalog will be doing some maintenance this evening (Tuesday, June 21), which may make the catalog unavailable or slow to respond. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

One of the problems with cataloging graphic material is that the cataloger can get sucked in to the details while attempting to figure out the content and context of the image. This nearly happened to me with this portrait of ten American Board missionaries in Turkey. The issue was that the people sitting for the portrait were identified by last name, with only three listing initials. The four individuals standing in the back are, from left to right: Smith, Trowbridge, Hallack, and Livingstone. The six sitting individuals are, from left to right: Long, I.G. Bliss, A.L. Thompson, Wood, Z. Goss, and Parsons.

I began researching this print using the Vinton Books, biographical sketches of American Board missionaries began by Rev. John A. Vinton (1801-1877) and updated after his death. Use of the Vinton Books only caused me to ask more questions, since the information I could find led me to believe that not all of the individuals listed above were in the same place at the same time. For example, Amherst Lord (A.L.) Thompson arrived in Oroomiah (Urūmīyah), Iran, in 1860 and died a month later. Smith (likely John Frances Smith, 1833-1896) graduated from Lane Seminary in 1862, was appointed to the American Board subsequently, and did not arrive in the Near East until 1863.

Because I was unclear about the content of the image, I left the catalog record with the information that I could verify, leaving it to the researcher to answer my lingering questions. This might sound callous, but it is difficult to provide access to a wide range of materials if all of our attention is focused on the details of individual items. If you have any ideas on how to solve the question of who this individuals are, please contact the Congregational Library.

--Abraham

We are pleased to announce that two more collection finding guides are up on our website. One is from Arlington, MA : Pleasant Street Congregational Church and the other is from Cambridge, MA : Pilgrim Congregational Church of Cambridgeport.

It is sad for a community when a church closes, as Pleasant Street did earlier this year and as Pilgrim did 19 years ago. Although it is the end of a community, it is not an end to the heritage and memory of the community and organization since they will live on through their records. With these two collections now open for patrons to view, it is up to the community to use these materials to preserve the memory of these, now gone, organizations.

Pleasant Street Congregational Church was formed in 1842 as the Orthodox Congregational Church of West Cambridge. By 1953, the Church had its current name. The records of the church contain organizational records, such as meeting minutes, annual reports, and financial statements, records from auxiliary groups, which organized events and the Sunday School, and photographs of the church and church functions. I would like to thank Stefanie Maclin for doing the initial processing of the records and the leadership of the church for transferring the records to the Congregational Library.

Pilgrim Congregational Church of Cambridgeport was formed in 1863 as Stearns Chapel and closed in 1992. The records contain materials that document the history and life of the church, from the early days as Stearns Chapel through the closure. The records include membership records, minutes, financial records, photographs, and historical information, such as from church anniversaries. We owe our thanks to one of our Simmons GSLIS interns, Helen Schubert, who processed the collection and wrote the finding guide during spring semester, 2011.

For more information on archival collections held at the Congregational Library, please view the electronic finding guides. For more information on church records, please search the Congregational Library catalog for "Church Records and Registers."

--Abraham

A lot of historical societies and museums are commemorating the 150th anniversary of the beginning of the American Civil War this year. Congregationalists of the time were quite active in the Abolitionist movement, and many gave sermons to that effect.

[]While we do have some more general materials from and about the Civil War era, it's not really the focus of our collections. It is a significant part of American history, though, so we'd like to direct your attention to the Smithsonian Institution's exhibits on the subject. It includes significant artifacts from soldiers, civilians, and President Lincoln himself. There are letters, diaries, scrapbooks, and even recordings of songs that were popular at the time.

--Robin

Over the past 11 years, I find myself getting to explain to people what is Congregationalism and how does it fit into the current denominational structures? I rarely get a straight forward question such as that, but I find that there's a lot that isn't in the greater public consciousness: not a full and known portrait. The past few years, particularly after editing Peggy's history videos, I am gaining a great deal of confidence in my information telling. I even have to ask my friends or new acquaintances to have me scale it back a bit if they think they've hit information overload. It's always good to have resources to supplement my planned and impromptu history lessons.

Claudette sent me a link to this very neat family tree, which traces the roots of the tree that is the United Church of Christ. You will find that if you hover over the red links, you'll get access to further information and more links. The hosting site, The Association of Religion Data Archives (ARDA) has an extensive list of other denominational family trees, which reminds me how complicated some are. For example, check out the significant number of splits for the Baptists. ARDA has a very rich site beyond this. I hope our patrons will find it helpful.

-Jessica

A quick reminder: the library reading room will be closed next Monday for our annual meeting.

[]

-Jessica

The following photograph is of the interior of Mount Vernon Congregational Church, showing the altar and pulpit. The church building was destroyed in a fire in 1977. If you were to walk past the location, like I have on many occasions, you would see what looks to be a church building. Instead, it is an apartment complex, with the church's façade.

This photograph evokes a sense of reality for that which is not "real" in the present. I can never know what it was to have stood within the halls of Mount Vernon Congregational Church, but, thanks to the medium of photography, we can perceive what it may have been like to gaze through the sanctuary. Even though the photographic eye is limited in what it can capture, this still creates a record of the past. This photograph serves as a memory tool for me, so that when I walk past the church's former location, I remember that this church once stood there.

For more information on more Boston churches, search the Congregational Library online catalog for titles that begin with "Boston, MA."

--Abraham

Some of you may be interested in this special site dedicated to the anniversary of the King James Bible, featuring multimedia presentations and articles by Robert Alter, N. T. Wright, Diarmaid MacCulloch, Phillip Jenkins and others: ABC (Australia) roundup of KJV anniversary materials.

(via Faith and Theology)

-Claudette

Every now and then, we come across an item in our collection that turns out to be more interesting than it first seems. Cataloging a book can reveal that it's quite rare or perhaps even the only publicly available copy on this continent.

In the process of building the upcoming ABCFM online exhibit, I've been adding metadata to the images it will contain. When it came time to describe the photo postcard of Fred Field Goodsell (from the Blake-Goodsell collection), I noticed that there was an embossed logo in the lower righthand corner. (It's not very visible in the scanned version, but it's there.) Hoping that there might be some information about the company online, I typed the name into Google. Much to my surprise, the firm of Sebah & Joaillier is rather well-known for its 19th and early 20th century photographs of Turkey.

[]There is a collection of Sebah & Joailllier photographs at Princeton University with a guide containing lots of historical information about the firm itself. More information can be found on the History of Photography site, as well. The most interesting tidbit is that the studio was named the official photographer to the Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, who commissioned images to be taken in Constantinople and across the realm around the turn of the 20th century. Having that same company take Mr. Goodsell's portrait and turn it into postcards must have been quite the status symbol.

Auction sites list original S & J photographs for about $50 each. We won't be selling ours, of course, since it's invaluable to us as part of the missionary family collection, but it's fun to know that it was produced by such a prestigious studio.

--Robin

I am happy to report that we have a new and improved guide to the Catharine Brown Collection. What was a general reference question became a test run for an upcoming project to re-evaluate our Small Collections, which will be implemented this summer by a Simmons intern. This has been a fortuitous mini-project because we determined that our current scanners are not large enough to accommodate full legal length paper, a snag we will have to address in the next few weeks.

In the meantime, Miss Brown's guide is on the website for everyone to use.

Thanks to Abe and Robin for making sure the guide looks so good.

-Jessica

While weeding our Early American almanac collection, we located a copy of Cherokee Almanac 1857 published at Park Hill by Mission Press, in both English and what we assume is Cherokee. Realizing it should be in a collection with other similar items, we contacted the Cherokee National Historical Society in Tahlequah, OK. Tom Mooney, the Archivist there, was happy to accept the donation of this almanac.

In his email to us, Tom described one of the collections at the Historical Society: "One of our more unusual collections here is nearly 600 newspapers which each carry some article about the Cherokee Indians. Most of these papers are from the east and several originate in Boston." He also offered us an index of this collection which he hopes to see digitized using a digital library grant administered through the Cherokee Nation.

If you are interested in Cherokee Nation history, Tom can be reached at tom-mooney@cherokee.org or 918-456-6007 x6152.

-Claudette

Once again, the beginning of May means the end of the semester for the Simmons interns. Our Old South interns, Annie and Theresa, worked brilliantly these past few months and here's what they had to say about their learning experience:

During the course of our internship, we learned quite a lot on many fronts, some of them quite unexpected. We gained knowledge about Congregational history and the history of Old South Church specifically. We also learned about how to tackle large collections. Our main challenge was to get as much of the collection processed and organized as we could, while still respecting the important historical value of the documents and maintaining the integrity of the collection. Hopefully our work will contribute towards making the collection more usable and accessible for collection's users.

Although we worked on one project, this semester gave a new perspective on the different phases of that processing, including planning. Our peers who had archival internships this semesters likely had much smaller project where outcomes were more probably completed finding aids. For us because our project was bigger we had different goals and outcomes. We needed to not only make sure the project progressed during our time at Old South, but to think about next steps for next semester. We strategized how to minimize transition time for next semester's interns. This project gave more insight to the many tasks archivists have to juggle for successful project management. We have seen how tasks need to not be completed with an eye towards overall project goals. Additionally, one has to balance what one hopes to with a collection, especially in terms of processing, with what is realistic and reasonable. This semester has given us knowledge about project maintenance and management that we can take with us and apply broadly throughout our careers. We have worked with some great people this semester who have been wonderful, who have made our experiences fun and constructive. Thanks for having us!

--Annie and Theresa

For those of us who are both devout Congregationalists and devout to the church of baseball, this link is for you!

It details the ongoing struggle of Jackie Robinson's acceptance into big league baseball in the face of overwhelming opposition, the baseball executive who was willing to fight: Branch Rickey, and Brooklyn Congregational minister, Wendell Fifield, who helped guide Rickey.

The CNN article also includes a brief video worth watching.

-Jessica

[]Our photographer friend, Steve Rosenthal, has created an online exhibit for his book White on White.

He writes:

It is with great pleasure that I invite you to the opening venue of Historic New England's Traveling Exhibit of White on White.

In conjunction with this exhibit at the Groton School, I am also pleased to announce the launch of my new website, which has been designed to help promote my book and traveling exhibit.

Please see the exhibits page of the website for information about this exhibit, and for dates and locations of future events.

http://whiteonwhite.steverosenthalphoto.com/

Steve's book is a favorite here in our Reading Room. I hope people will have the chance to see upcoming events:

• April 4 - June 5, 2011
  The de Menil Gallery, Dillon Art Center
  Groton School, Groton, Massachusetts
• June 30 - September 23, 2012
  Bruce Museum
  Greenwich, Connecticut
• October 6, 2012 - January 27, 2013
  Florence Griswold Museum
  Old Lyme, Connecticut

-Jessica

What is Congregationalism and why is it important?

Experience our popular Growing Deeper Roots seminar series in condensed form. Dr. Peggy Bendroth will cover more than three centuries of Congregational history in a one-day workshop. From the early Protestants of western Europe to the formation of the current American denominations, there is plenty to discuss.

All are welcome, from scholars to the simply curious.

May 19th or July 28th
10:00 am – 3:00 pm

$15. Advance registration is required.

** Better Together -- register for either session of "Growing Deeper Roots" and our upcoming "Finding Ancestors" genealogy seminar on June 11th for $25/per person!

There is a compelling article in the latest issue of Preservation magazine: "The Forgotten: the Contraband of America and the Road to Freedom" by Eric Wills.

This article was recommended to us by Faith Johnson, former ACA Board member, as relevant to our library collections on slavery and the American Missionary Association.

[]Mary S. Peake was the first black teacher hired by the American Missionary Association, she was associated with its later founding of Hampton University in 1868. Louis C. Lockwood, a member of the American Missionary Association, was the first missionary to the freedmen at Fort Monroe and greatly admired Ms. Peake. He was the sponsor of her school and wrote her biography.

-Claudette

photograph of Mary Smith Peake courtesy of the Hampton University Museum Archives, via Wikipedia

On April 2, 2011, I attended a session at the New England Archivists' Spring 2011 Meeting on working with community archives. One of the Yale archivists described his projects where he provided information to community organizations on how to manage the records that the community organizations created and stored. When I heard this, I thought to myself, "The Congregational Library does this!" The Congregational Library has several resources on our website, including a booklet on how to start a records management program and useful templates.

Why records management? What is the benefit of undertaking more work for your church? There are practical benefits to this sort of program. Finding everyday records quickly allows for more time to be devoted to planning church events, raising funds, or even filing taxes, because time will not be wasted hunting for that one all important piece of paper.

There is another reason why such a program could be beneficial: preserving the memory of your organization. Organized records will help preserve the parts of the past for future use, whether it is by members of your Church or by local historians. One special part about preserving your church's past is that you have the power to act. With resources linked in the first paragraph, and other resources, like those at the Northeast Document Conservation Center, you can begin planning how to preserve your institutions past. Please follow the Congregational Library events page for an up-to-date listing of relevant events.

--Abraham

Verily, Verily, I Say Unto You: Remember the Virtues of the King James Bible Lo These Last 400 Years!!

Click this link to see the video of Jon Sweeney's lecture. This program was co-sponsored by Mass. Bible Society and the Congregational Library. If you were unable to join us on April 11, here is your chance to see Jon.

-Claudette

Off the Record: Telling Lives of People Hidden in Plain Sight
A Conference for Massachusetts History Organizations

Presented by Mass Humanities, the Massachusetts Historical Society, the University of Massachusetts Amherst Program in Public History, the Joseph P. Healey Library and the Public History Track at the University of Massachusetts Boston

Monday, June 6, 2011
9:00 am - 4:00 pm

Hogan Campus Center, College of the Holy Cross, Worcester

The 2011 Massachusetts history conference takes as its theme historical programming (exhibits, tours, talks, websites, etc.) featuring people who are not usually present in the collections of local history organizations: slaves, free Blacks, Native Americans, women (and men) who did not toe the line in some way, itinerants, recent immigrants, the poor, disabled, and ill.

This year's conference features a keynote address by Dr. Elise Lemire of SUNY Purchase on "Rack Rocus: Bringing Northern Slavery into View".

For further details and registration information, see the conference page on the Mass Humanities website.