Beacon Street Blog

The Frederick Fagley Awards

presented May 24, 2007

The Congregational Christian Historical Society established the Fagley Award in 1965, in honor of Frederick Fagley, one of the organization’s founders. The first awards, given in 1966, went to the Asylum Hill Congregational Church in Hartford and to the Kiantone Congregational Church in New York, which belonged to the Conservative Congregational Christian Conference.

The award falls into two categories, for churches with a membership over 350 members and those under 350. I’m happy to report that this year we have three wonderful recipients.

The Plymouth Congregational Church, Minneapolis, Minnesota (350 and above) -- This congregation marked its 150th year with a beautifully produced historical book, “Walking Together in All God’s Ways", written by Dave Kenny, who was very ably assisted by the church’s sesquicentennial book committee. The richly narrated text is supplemented by many color illustrations and topical insets. The various materials they produced included most notably a CD of music and narration, entitled “Music and Thanksgiving".

Trinity United Church of Christ, Columbus,Ohio, (350 and below) –- Annette O’Stroske compiled and edited a bound volume of memoirs and stories from this congregation’s first fifty years together. Written reminiscences from a wide range of church members make this a very personal and historically interesting look back over a remarkable time of growth and development.

Honorable Mentions

Ripley United Church of Christ, in Traer, Iowa, celebrated its first 150 years together through a variety of creative projects, including a historical booklet, a stained glass window project, a play ("Vintage Views"), and a driving tour of historical points of interest.

Mayville Congregational United Church of Christ in Mayville, North Dakota, marked 125 years together with a beautifully produced booklet entitled "From Our Roots", compiled by Dorothy Enger. The booklet included a bookmark complete with acorn and oak leaf motifs.

Congratulations to all of our hardworking and creative award winners!

The Nathanael M. Guptill Award

presented May 24, 2007

The Guptill Award was established in 1997, in honor of Nathanel M. Guptill, past president of the Congregational Christian Historical Society, to be given to institutional histories, typically state conferences or associations. The first winner of the award was John E. Nutting, for his history of the Vermont Conference.

This year’s winner is our own Rick Taylor for his magisterial history of the Rhode Island Conference, "Embracing God’s Hospitality: Celebrating Over Two Hundred Years of Ministry Together". Like all of Rick’s historical work, this one is deeply grounded in the larger story of Congregational Christian history, but also alert to the telling details of local church life. And again, like so much of Rick’s research, this history breaks new ground with primary sources, including the fascinating story of African-American composer Newport Gardner and a prophetic stand on gender-inclusive language in 1869 when the Christians ordained Ellen G. Gustin.

Congratulations to Rick on a tremendous labor of love, and a solid scholarly achievement.

Stephen Marini will be giving a lecture on “The New England Singing School and the Transformation of Congregationalist Praise, 1720-1800".

More information and registration on our website.

Call Beth Spaulding 617-523-0470 with any questions.

See you Thursday!

Registration from our for the CCHS Spring meeting is stlll open.

Contact Beth Spaulding 617-523-0470 x230 if you have questions or register on the website.

Please join us on May 24 for the Presentation of the Fagley and Guptil Awards, guided tours of the Hancock-Clark House and Lexington Green, and the Lecture by Stephen A. Marini on "The New England Singing School and the Transformation of Congregationalist Praise, 1720-1800." The cost is only $5.00.

From the Annual minutes of the ACA, 1939:

"In recent weeks the Library School of Simmons College has sent us one of its graduate students, Rev. Richard D. Pierce for a week of observation and practice which this school requires for all its students. Mr. Pierce who is assistant librarian at the Andover-Newton Theological School, proved himself a very capable student. In a letter recently received he spoke in a very complementary manner of our system. He wrote, in part, as follows: ' I feel that it was a week most profitably spent and will be useful experience in connection with my work here at Newton. Particularly do I admire the smooth-running system you have achieved both in charging out books and in serving reading room patrons. The charging system and the closed stacks are in a large measure, I think, responsible for the situation.'"

Both Jess and I were fortunate to have interns from the Simmons College Graduate School of Library and Information Science concentrating in archives this Spring semester. Mike Thompson worked as our records management intern bringing order to local church histories in the Class 17.11.1. While Molly Whiteside applied her advanced archive skills on manuscript sermons by such preachers as Francis Foxcroft and Thomas Shepard II.

Registration for the CCHS Spring meeting is now open through our website.

Please join us on May 24 at 2:00 PM for the Presentation of the Fagley and Guptil Awards, guided tours of the Hancock-Clark House and Lexington Green, and the lecture by Stephen A. Marini on "The New England Singing School and the Transformation of Congregationalist Praise, 1720-1800". The cost is only $5.00.

Register on our website.

Read about Stephen Marini.

The biography, The Most Famous Man in America: The Biography of Henry Ward Beecher, by Debby Applegate has won the Pulitzer Prize. This book is available at the Library. Reviews of this book can be found on Amazon.com. If you wish to borrow this book from us, you can email circ@14beacon.org or call 617-523-0470 to have this book mailed to you. Don't miss out on reading the story of one of the most famous 19th century pastors. 

There is still space available for Research 101 for Church Historians on April 13. For details and to register, please see our website. We look forward to seeing you Friday.

We now have officially fixed up our online registration for Research 101! You may register online. You may also pay online via PayPal, although using PayPal is not mandatory for the electronic registration. Those who have already contacted us are still signed up.

Click Here to register for Research 101 online.

CCHS Meeting: May 24, 2007 at Hancock Church, Lexington, MA. Tours of historic properties at 2:30. Lecture to follow at 3:30. All are welcome. Registration for event is $10.00.

CCHS Lecture Title: The New England Singing School and the Transformation of Congregationalist Praise, 1720-1800.

Stephen A. Marini is Elizabeth Luce Moore Professor of Christian Studies and Professor of American Religion and Ethics at Wellesley College. A specialist in colonial and early American religious culture, he has also been a frequent visiting professor on New England theological faculties including Harvard Divinity School, Andover Newton Theological School, and most recently Yale Divinity School/Yale Institute of Sacred Music. He is the author of three books, including "Radical Sects of Revolutionary New England" (Harvard University Press, 1982) and "Sacred Song in America: Religion, Music, and Public Culture" (University of Illinois Press, 2003).

Professor Marini is also the founder and singing master of Norumbega Harmony, Boston’s leading advocate of New England singing-school music. He is General Editor of the group’s recent tunebook, "The Norumbega Harmony: Historic and Contemporary Hymns and Anthems from the new England Singing School Tradition" (University Press of Mississippi, 2003) and has conducted the 25-voice choral ensemble’s performances on three CDs, including Sweet Seraphic Fire: New England Singing School Music from the Norumbega Harmony (New World Records, 2005).

Professor Marini is currently working on two book projects, both of them germane to today’s lecture, provisionally titled "The Mantle of Praise: Word and Music in American Protestant Culture" and "American Reformation: Religion in Revolutionary Society, 1750-17".

See the post from the student who visited us on the SLA Blog.

I've been working to complete the section in US history related to the "Indians". I found a wealth of pamphlets published from the early to late 1800 regarding the condition and management of Indians. Numerous pamphlets and letters were published by the Indian Rights Association. One such pamphlet is "The Latest Studies on Indian Reservations" by J.B. Harrison and another is "Our Next Duty to the Indians" by James E. Rhoads, both published in 1887. We also have many reports, discourses and sermons from the Society for Propagating the Gospel among the Indians, and others, in North America. One of these sermons was preached November 8, 1817 in Chauncy-Place Church, Boston by John Foster and another was preached November 5, 1829 by Benjamin B. Wisner, pastor of Old South Church, Boston. Rev. Wisner's title was "The Proper Mode of Conducting Missions to the Heathen."  In his "Address on the Present Condition and Prospects of the Aboriginal Inhabitants of North America, with particular reference to the Seneca Nation, M. B. Pierce, a chief of the Seneca Nation and a member of Dartmouth College, speaks on the wrongs done to the Indian tribes and the land frauds perpetrated upon them.

Yesterday we attended a seminar on the topic of Online Outreach given at the Boston Public Library. We now have a whole list of new ideas and actions to take to become more visible to our patrons thanks to Jennifer Koerber, the presenter of the seminar. One idea from our list was to create an entry for the Congregational Library in Wikipedia, the free online encyclopedia that anyone can edit. Our wonderful volunteer, Youngmi, offered to start a Wikipedia entry for us. Here's the link: The Congregational Library

We welcome your comments and edits to the entry. Watch this space for more developments in online outreach.

We're continuing to catalog sermons into our online catalog. Some of the latest sermons entered are on the topic of morality. A couple of titles that caught my eye were "Comfort to Sodom: a Sermon on gambling preached in the Union Congregational Church Worcester, April 22, 1883" by Henry A. Stimson and "Joy in Heaven over the Penitent. A Sermon delivered in Park Street Church, before the Penitent Females' Refuge Society on the evening of Sabbath, December 18, 1825" by Justin Edwards. It's hard not to stop and read these sermons. Who was in the congregation who heard these sermons? Was gambling a political as well as a religious issue in that time? Who were the females in the Penitent Females' Refuge Society and what did they do?

New records are added daily so check us out.

We received the following Call for Papers. They have indicated a particular interest in religious history.

Ninth Annual Conference on Illinois History, Springfield, Illinois, October 18-19, 2007

Proposals for individual papers or panels on any aspect of Illinois' history, culture, politics, geography, literature, and archeology are requested for the Conference on Illinois History. The Conference welcomes submissions from professionals and avocational historians, graduate students, and those engaged in the study of Illinois history at libraries, historic sites, museums, and historical societies.

Each proposal should include a summary of the topic and a one-page resume of the participant. The summary should specify the major primary and secondary sources used in the research. Proposals should be formal, footnoted papers. The deadline for proposals is March 20, 2007.

Contact: Thomas F. Schwartz, State Historian, Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library, Illinois Historic Preservation Agency, 112 North Sixth Street, Springfield, IL 62701.

Phone: 217-782-2118, Fax: 217-558-1574, tom.schwartz@illinois.gov, Web site

If you live outside the Boston area/outside of Massachusetts and you wish you could have one of the Research 101 seminars in your area, please inquire! We've been getting a lot of positive feedback from our Records Management booklet and following up with a seminar to discuss the logistics of caring for church records is a natural next step. Please contact me for details.

Jessica Steytler, archivist

We hope that you join us next Wednesday, February 7 at 12 noon for our second in a series of Brown Bag Lunch Lectures.  This time Linda Palmer, actress and tour guide, will portray Ann Vassal and present "Dissent among the Puritans: The Story of Ann Vassall". Come and discover the warning that Ann is issuing to new residents of the Massachusetts Bay colony.

Bring your lunch. Soft drinks and dessert will be provided.

Questions: call 617-523-0470.

Thanks to Robin, we now have a searchable database of Missionary Necrologies. Included in the database is an index to necrology information located in the Vinton volumes and the Missionary Herald. The database includes names and dates of missionaries and their families.

You can contact us at info@14beacon.org or call 617-523-0470 with your questions.

Join us for our Brown Bag Lunch Lecture tomorrow at noon. Soft drinks will be provided. Don't miss Sharon Taylor's presentation on the History of the Andover Controversy. We look forward to seeing you here.

We still lend books by mail so if you see something in our online catalog, call us at 617-523-0470 or email us at circ@14beacon.org. You can also renew books via phone or email. If you have never borrowed from us before, be sure to give us your address, phone number, and email address.

Two recent additions to our collection are:

Hodgson, Godfrey. A Great and Godly Adventure: the Pilgrims and the Myth of the First Thanksgiving.

Puls, Mark. Samuel Adams: Father of the American Revolution.

12:00-1:00 January 17th, at the Congregational Library

Be sure not to
miss our first Brown Bag Lunch Lecture on with Sharon Taylor from
Andover Newton Theological School. Her topic will be "Dogmas, Debates and Heresy Trials: A Short History of the Andover Controversy".

Is your resolution to learn something new in 2007? Are you hungering for information? Are you tired of the same old lunch time routine? Resolve to stop by the Library for one of our Brown Bag Lunch Lectures. Beginning in January, we will be feeding your mind while you feed your body. Our first lecture will be January 17 and features Sharon Taylor, Director of the Andover-Newton Theological Seminary Library. She will speak on "Dogmas, Debates and Heresy Trials: A Short History of the Andover Controversy". Join us in the Library from 12-1:00 PM.

More information can be found on our website or by calling us at 617-523-0470. Additional lectures will be given in February, March and April. Watch for further details.

I'm overjoyed to announce that the library has been awarded an National Endowment for the Humanities grant for this coming year. The money will be used to hire a member of NEDCC to complete a survey our our collection. The findings from that survey will be the basis of further projects to improve the longevity of the collection.

Additionally, our grant has been pulled from the "We The People" initiative that focuses on American history and culture.

Expect to hear more on this project in the coming months.

--Jessica

Thank you to the Merom Conference Center for their gift of "Story of Union Christian College" by Robert Brown and 5 microfilm reels of "Records of the Merom Conference Center". These are now available for use by researchers in the library. We are in the process of making copies of an additional 5 microfilm reels of "Merom Institute" records from 1863-1910. We greatly appreciate the cooperation and generosity of the Merom Conference Center in sharing these important historical materials with us. A very specially thank you to Dale Dressler and Bob Brown. Please visit their website to learn more about their ministry.

The library staff has been abuzz about the Brainard Pratt scrapbooks that were rediscovered by Claudette. The good Reverend was an enthusiastic Bible illuminator and one of the found books is a specialized Bible that has more margin than text in which illuminations can be drawn. I've just uploaded a sample of some of his drawings. They're truly gorgeous. To see the album, scroll down in the left navigation bar.