Beacon Street Blog

Don't miss out on this month's free lunchtime lecture.

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Inventing George Whitefield

On a fall day in 1838, a cortege wound through the streets of Newburyport, Massachusetts, headed for Old South Presbyterian Church. A box contained the humerus bone of eighteenth-century English preacher George Whitefield, who had been previously interred in the basement crypt of the church following his death in September 1770. The reinterment ceremony restored the bone, which had been pilfered by a British admirer of Whitefield's, to its former resting place.

This nineteenth-century memorialization was the latest in a long series of contentious and sometimes strange events involving Whitefield since he first set foot in New England in 1740, at the invitation of Benjamin Colman, Jonathan Edwards, and a small handful of Congregationalists with revivalist sympathies. The invitation of Whitefield was not without controversy among New England's ministerial elite. While Whitefield's sponsors hoped that his visit would renew a waning interest in religious life, his detractors worried that his visit would undermine the authority of clergy and upset the region's fractious peace. Reactions to Whitefield varied, with members of the old Congregationalist guard, such as Charles Chauncy, lamenting Whitefield's effect on religious life in the colonies.

This presentation will discuss what Whitefield's arrival in New England meant for its religious culture, as well as how an itinerant Anglican preacher came to be buried in a Presbyterian Church. It will also discuss how Whitefield's tomb because a site of pilgrimage for his followers.

Jessica Parr is a historian, specializing in the history of race and religion in the Early Modern Atlantic World. She received her PhD from the University of New Hampshire at Durham in 2012 and also holds an MA in History and and MS in Archives Management from Simmons College. Parr is a regular contributor to The Junto: a Group Blog on Early American History, and a co-editor at H-Net. Her first book, Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon, was published by the University Press of Mississippi in 2015. Parr teaches at the University of New Hampshire at Manchester and Emmanuel College.

 

Tuesday, April 12th
12:00 - 1:00 pm

Free.
Register through Eventbrite.

 

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engraving of George Whitefield by Frederick Halpin (ca. 1870) based on a painting by John Greenwood (ca. 1768)

 

The Congregational Library and Archives will be closed this Friday, March 25th, in observance of Good Friday.

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

We hope you have a pleasant Easter weekend.

 

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excerpt from "Field Of Easter Lilies" (2008) submitted to Wikimedia Commons by user ForestWander

In the mid-1800s, as mission work expanded in scope, the ABCFM began to actively recruit women missionaries. The goal of the missions — to create self-sustaining churches — required not only pastors, but nurses, doctors, and teachers. While ministers' wives and even single women had long gone to work in missions, the ABCFM formalized women's involvement by establishing the Women's Board of Missions in 1868.

The Women's Board was responsible for recruiting and training women missionaries. The board had offices on the seventh floor of Congregational House, five floors up from where the Congregational Library & Archives sits today. In our present-day archives, we have a collection of pamphlets that were used to encourage women to become missionaries. Glancing through the papers allows us to eavesdrop on a conversations between women that happened over one hundred years ago.

The green-printed cover of one folded brochure speaks directly to young middle-class women:

"TO YOU who are enjoying all the rich fruitage of a Christian education and who are seeking the largest opportunities for sharing what you have received with others, unless you are detained in this land by imperative obligations, the call is to go."

Inside the brochure, women read descriptions of missions in South Africa, Turkey, India, China, Japan, and Micronesia. There were positions for teachers, nurses, even doctors in addition to the more traditional "evangelistic worker". The pamphlet spoke to worried mothers as well, assuring that as their daughters were called to go, they were called to let go.

In a pamphlet with the simple title Being a Missionary, missionary worker Mrs. H. S. Calder spoke directly to other women who are considering missionary work. She addressed both their concerns and their hopes.

"When you mention to your friends that you are thinking of becoming a foreign missionary, some of them will tell you that you are quite too good for this work,-- that some one who has had fewer advantages, some one of less culture, some one made of a coarser fiber, not such a choice spirit as you, some one whose life is more allied to those people in whom you have developed this sudden interest, some one not so far above them in education and refinement,-- that such a person will do that work far better than you can do it; that it is your duty to use your superior talents where they will avail the most, and that it is wrong to 'cast pearls before swine.' …But they need your help and stimulus."

Calder wrote of the challenges educated women would have as missionaries, and spoke frankly about her own struggles.

"You are fond of school work, and feel that you can succeed in that, but you find your attention and time taken by the most uninteresting and distasteful details of domestic work, toward which you never had any learning, and which you know little about. I well remember how appalled I was when, in the first or second year of missionary experience, I was in charge of the schoolgirls for an hour while they were mending their clothes, and one of them quietly said to me, 'Will you please cut my dress?' I stood aghast. I, not at all adept at dressmaking, then and there, without patterns, cut a dress for a girl sixteen years old? Don't ask me the end of this story, for it might be unpleasant for me, but remember that you need to be better equipped for your position than I was for mine."

But the hard work would be fulfilling. Calder wrote, "If you are weak, under this experience you will grow strong. If you are severe, you will soften. I have seen it."

Congregational missionaries worked to engage women who stayed in the United States as well. The Women's Board of Missions of the Interior, based in Chicago, focused primarily on fundraising to support the missions. The WBMI provided opportunities for engagement to women who were not able to venture out into the field, but who wished to support others who went abroad as foreign missionaries. In one pamphlet, the WBMI explains its mission:

"Its object is the engage the earnest, systemic co-operation of Christian women in sending out and supporting women as missionaries, native teachers, and Bible readers to women and Children in Christless lands."

The WBMI published letters from women currently serving in missions in their magazines. Ann Ellis Pullen, Kennesaw State University professor emerita, wrote about the life of Nellie Arnott, who was engaged both in missionary work and in marketing the missions. Arnott wrote letters designed to be read in public and articles for WBMI magazines about her life in Angola, to help raise money for the missions and persuade other women to follow her overseas.

"It was clear to Arnott that pert of her responsibility was to write circular letters to her supporters at home to encourage donations, to encourage just thinking about the missions, and coming to the missions," says Pullen. "The women's magazines were certainly intended to be a marketing tool."

Pullen notes that Arnott's diaries are often discouraged about the mission and her role on it, but the letters she wrote to friends and for publication were upbeat and cheerful. "The female missionaries were encouraged to become missionary journalists in a very positive way, as a marketing tool," she said.

Even if it is propagandistic, these pamphlets and articles are examples of women speaking directly to women in the early 20th century in the marketing of mission work. Through their words, we can begin to understand what mattered to Congregational women, and what might have persuaded a young woman from Iowa to pick up and move to Angola, as Nellie Arnott did. These pamphlets are important records, helping us remember women's dreams, women's frustrations, and voices like Calder's encouraging middle-class women to claim a little agency, and go on an adventure.

For my sixty-hour internship, I processed and created a finding aid for a collection of records from the Congregational Conference of Illinois and its member associations. Because this was my first hands-on experience in the archival field, many aspects of processing surprised me. For example, the importance of preserving original order has been drilled into my mind in class. However, I discovered on my first day at the CLA that I would be imposing an artificial order onto a collection.

Not only did the records have no meaningful original order, the different associations' documents making up the collection had never been intentionally grouped together before. I discovered that because a perfectly preserved original order is not a given outside of the classroom, the archivist's role in creating access and order for researchers is even more crucial. My internship was also an opportunity to learn a new kind of language, as I was completely ignorant about the structure and vocabulary of Congregationalism. For instance, the waves of letters of dismissal I kept bumping into were not evidence of a Great Church Recession that resulted in mass firings. Instead, these documents often signified a minister's transfer between churches. Similarly, I had no idea that an "In Care Association" kept records about future ministers. One of my favorite aspects of the internship was the ability to learn about history through a different perspective. I had no idea that Congregational ministers in Illinois were heavily involved in abolitionist efforts, or that they frequently participated in the Underground Railroad. While doing background research, I even discovered that one Congregational minister lost his life while trying to defend a member of the press speaking against slavery in Illinois in 1837. It was also fascinating to learn the large role the denomination played in developing the Republican Party during its earliest stage. After completing my internship, I am even more excited to enter the archival field and peek into the lives and work of many different people and groups.

-Corinne Bernstein

Member profile: Carolyn Sundquist

It has been cold and snowy here in Boston and across much of the United States, but at least one of our members has relished the wintry weather. When we caught up with Carolyn Sundquist, she was headed out for her Monday morning ice skating session in Duluth, Minnesota. She was happy to have the chance to talk about her interest in the Congregational Library & Archives, and the many reasons why she values her membership.

One reason dovetails with her deep involvement in architectural preservation. Carolyn lives in a home built in 1911 and occupied by her family since 1921. Her success at preserving her own home, and later public buildings, evolved into a passion for historic preservation public policy and advocacy. "Architectural preservation is history in 3-D," says Carolyn.

As Carolyn points out, the Congregational Library & Archives is an historic building in an historic district within the historic city where Congregationalism took root. The library building on Beacon Street is as much a part of history as the records within it.

Carolyn's preservation interests also touch on church buildings across the country, which were extremely important to the development of individual communities across the country. The buildings provided a physical place for people to gather and plan the life of the community. "Congregational history goes hand in hand with the preservation of the Library and church buildings," says Carolyn.

The Congregational Library & Archives is also a repository of more traditional 2-D history. Some of that history involves Carolyn's family, which has been Congregationalist for (at least!) five generations. Carolyn's parents and grandparents were instrumental in the beginning of the NACCC, and she grew up attending Pilgrim Fellowship meetings at the annual NACCC meetings. Carolyn has taken her active involvement in her own Duluth Congregational Church to a national level. Over the last twenty years, she has been part of the Congregational Church Development Committee and for the past twelve, she has served on the board of the Congregational Foundation. She steps down as its president later this year.

Carolyn understands why history matters. "When you understand the development of the past, you can understand the actions of the present and formulate policies for the future."

Members guarantee the future for the Congregational Library & Archives, its historic building, and the history it contains. Members will keep it open for many cold winters to come. Please join Carolyn.

 

There's still plenty of time to register for this month's free lunchtime lecture. Don't miss out.

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Since the first settlers arrived in New England in the 17th century, there has been movement and migration — first within New England, then to New York, the mid-west, and beyond. Understanding these migrations provides important context and a framework for anyone researching early New England and pioneer ancestors. This illustrated lecture will explain these population shifts, reasons for resettlement, and demographics, plus suggest a number of useful reference works.

Chris Child has worked for various departments at the New England Historic Genealogical Society since 1997 and became a full-time employee in July 2003. He has been a member of NEHGS since the age of eleven. He has written several articles in American Ancestors, The New England Historical and Genealogical Register, and The Mayflower Descendant. He is the co-editor of The Ancestry of Catherine Middleton (NEHGS, 2011), co-author of The Descendants of Judge John Lowell of Newburyport, Massachusetts (Newbury Street Press, 2011) and Ancestors and Descendants of George Rufus and Alice Nelson Pratt (Newbury Street Press, 2013), and author of The Nelson Family of Rowley, Massachusetts (Newbury Street Press, 2014). Chris holds a B.A. in history from Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. His areas of expertise include: Southern New England, especially Connecticut; New York; ancestry of notable figures, especially presidents; genetics and genealogy; African-American and Native-American genealogy, 19th and 20th Century research, westward migrations out of New England, and applying to hereditary societies. Chris has lectured on these topics and edits the genetics and genealogy column for American Ancestors.

 

Thursday, February 18th
12:00 - 1:00 pm

Free
Register through Eventbrite.

 

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excerpt from "Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way" (1861) by Emanuel Leuteze, located in the US Capitol building, via Wikimedia Commons

The Superbowl was a luxury for Patriots fans this year, at least for some of us. Yes, we lost to Denver and didn't get to play in Santa Clara — but there's something warm and enjoyable about watching a game just for fun, knowing that in the end you'll be pretty much the same emotionally as you were at the beginning. Call me shallow, but I have more than a little scarring, courtesy of the New York Giants and I admit, even Peyton Manning.

Sports radio makes it even more fun. It's basically gossip for men, of course, mostly snark and hearsay about what someone said to somebody else, and can you believe the nerve of those people? It's also generally immature and often sexist and dumb, and sometimes I just have to turn it off and walk away. But over the years I have been a loyal listener. Maybe it's because sports fans are some of the few people out there who appreciate history.

Compare sports radio with other stations, the kind you hear at the gym or shopping malls. Their definition of "oldies" is just puzzling — it seems to be pretty much everything before last month, a mishmash of the rock music I heard in high school in the 1970s up to last week.

At thirteen, my treasured possession was a small plastic transistor radio strapped into in a white fake leather case. That radio, I dearly hoped, was the first step in a wonderful journey. I was on my way to being cool.

Of course, you had to know what station to listen to. In my town it was WBBF, the local top-40 station, "better by far." And you had to keep up with the play list. It changed all the time, force-feeding us the latest new hits (did anybody really like Bobby Goldsboro?) and tracking their progress up or down the popularity chart. You also had to have a favorite song, one you waited for hours through hours of commercials and DJ blather. But that song would only be around a week or two; after a while it kind of disappeared. And so to stay cool you picked another one. And on it went, year after year. The songs ticked off weeks and months and years. "Hey Jude" was sophomore art class (the teacher was extremely cool and let us play the radio) and "Fire and Rain" the background track to moody months of senioritis.

Now oldies can be anything, including some of the dumbest songs I thought I'd never hear again, forgettable 60s schlock with pseudo-hippy outrage and Jesus freak pieties. There is no concept of time in adult contemporary radio any more.

Not so my friends on the sports station. That's where you go to get the long perspective, the endlessly dissected back story behind every "storied rivalry" or devastating loss. I hate the Yankees because of Goose Gossage and Reggie Jackson, all that swagger and spit still fresh after three decades or more. I am a Red Sox fan, but I will always love the Orioles because Eddie Murphy and Ken Singleton and Gary Roenike got me through graduate school. "We Are Family" by Sly and the Family Stone still makes me sad because it was the Pittsburgh Pirates' dopey theme song, the year they beat the Orioles in the World Series.

There are still places in our world today where the past matters, I guess, but you have to look for them. It's worth it though. When you do, you'll find people who really care about something, who have — let's say it — a passion. Maybe that's why some sports still matters so much, even after all the drugs and bad behavior and obscene amounts of money. (Underinflated footballs don't count.) Peyton Manning isn't just another quarterback, any more than Aaron Boone is just another baseball player. As every sports radio diva knows, the past is never really past. It's always alive and ready to bite. It brings pain and sorrow, but also real emotion, genuine feelings. Without history, the container of all those hopes, dreams, and fears, sports and life itself wouldn't matter half as much — and it wouldn't be half as fun.

-Peggy

 

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photograph of vintage transistor radio found via Wikimedia Commons courtesy of user Joe Haupt

Every community group goes through occasional growing pains, and churches are no exception. In "Disorganized Religion", Peggy Bendroth's recent guest post on the UNC Press blog, she explores the ongoing trend away from bloated bureaucracies in American Protestant churches.

Nobody really likes organized religion. It all seems to have so little to do with actual faith — the endless acronyms of denominational programs and taglines, mind-bogglingly complex institutional reorganizations, and the blind impersonality of national synods and assemblies and conferences. It's the cold wet blanket, the flat gray oatmeal that most people imagine when they say they are "spiritual but not religious."

Organized religion just seems so unnecessary. Though American religiosity looks as varied and intense as ever, study after study has shown it drifting loose from the institutional structures that have defined the last two centuries of belief and practice.

Keep reading >>

If you'd like to learn more about the evolution of American Congregationalism from Dr. Bendroth herself, condiser attending our upcoming History Matters event on March 23rd.

It's been a while since we've promoted our page of resources for church libraries. We have gathered a list of websites, books, and articles to help with everything from getting started to ensuring your collection can be passed down through the generations.

One of the tools we've recommended in recent years is a free online cataloging system called LibraryThing, and now it's even better. The makers of LibraryThing have just launched an extension called TinyCat that turns your basic list of books into a real library catalog. It can help make your catalog records more robust, makes searching easier, is mobile-ready, and even has a circulation system to keep track of when your books are checked out and when they're due.

If you're already using LibraryThing for your church library (or any very small library), TinyCat could make it even better. If you're not using it yet, this might just be the time to start.

The Congregational Library & Archives will be closed on Monday, January 18th in observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

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

Our newsletter and blog often discuss the records in our collection, from documents of agricultural disputes, to notes on the LGBT struggle. But there's more to the Congregational Library & Archives than the books and papers at 14 Beacon. Our archivist Jessica Steytler often goes out into the wider Congregational world, visiting churches to help congregations care for their own records, and find glimmers of historical gold.

"We teach churches to care for their own records," says Jessica. "We always encourage churches to contact us with questions. Sometimes, I am able to go visit and work with them in person."

One such recent visit is to the First Church in Malden, where Jessica met Marilyn MacAskill, the church treasurer. "The First Church in Malden called initially to ask if we would take their records," says Jessica. "We don't take records from active churches, so we started talking about what the church could do with their material."

The First Church in Malden is a congregation in transition, moving from a church built in the early 1930s to a smaller space. "Our church building has been sold, and we're moving to a building with less storage space," explains Marilyn.

There are generations' worth of material in the Malden church, dating back to the 1870s. But with the move to a smaller building, space to store the records is becoming a problem.

"The big problem now is what we keep and what we do away with," says Marilyn.

After Jessica consulted with Marilyn on the phone about storage and management of the collection, she made the trip to the church.

"I am able to make recommendations in person and over the phone about what resources are available for disaster planning, records management planning, suppliers for archive-quality material. The thing that I try to emphasize to churches is scalable solutions. You can do a little thing, and it can make a big difference. You don't have to pick the Cadillac choice to do the right thing."

Simple choices, says Jessica, can make a difference for both digital and paper records.

"Like keeping only one version of something, naming files logically, trying to be thoughtful about organizing computer files so that it's not just a mess on your desktop. These things require time and thought, but not money."

As far as physical records, Jessica says, "Knowing what you have is the most important step." From there, she recommends starting with simple solutions. To that end, storing items in a well-organized filing cabinet is perfectly acceptable, as are clean, strong cardboard boxes. "Well-marked boxes," she adds, "so it is clear that they are historically relevant. You don't want them to accidentally be confused with Christmas decorations." From there, it's important to keep the records safe from water damage and pests. "Is it too close to the floor in a basement? Is it too close to the roof in an attic? Is it underneath pipes?"

"These are things that don’t require a lot of money, but they require time and interest."

Time and money are constraints for many churches, and some are turning to digitization, hoping for a solution. "Everybody's interested in scanning their records," says Jessica, but she is quick to warn against scanning a record and throwing the paper copy away. "The reason to scan something is because you want to make it available to the public. Pick your favorite thing, scan it, do it well, maintain it. Just don't throw it away when you’re done!"

Digital records are, in the long run, more fragile and more expensive to maintain, Jessica explains. "You will be able to read a piece of paper in 100, 200, maybe even 300 years," says Jessica. Even if the digitized files survived inevitable computer crashes, viruses, and were diligently transferred to each new computer, "You won't be able to read a Word document in twenty years," she says. "Scanning is a short-term solution, and not something to be done lightly. There are so many ways for valuable things to disappear."

Jessica recommends thoughtfully editing the records. "You cannot keep everything," she says. "Not only because it takes up space, but you can't make interesting records accessible when they are buried under unimportant things like cancelled checks," Jessica says.

Whenever possible, Jessica recommends churches work through their records with help from a professional archivist, and that's just what the church in Malden is doing. "Jessica suggested that we get an archivist come in to help in deciding what we should keep and what we should throw away," says Marilyn.

"But when it's not possible to hire an archivist, we need to empower congregations to take on the responsibilities of caring for historical records," says Jessica. "That's very much in keeping with how Congregationalism works, from the bottom up, letting the congregation make their choice on what to do with their records."

Church records are of clear importance to an active church, but they are also of significance to the wider community. "Those records are a window into a town's history," says Jessica. Marilyn agrees. "Our church is one year older than the town, so the town was actually formed in the church. The church was the governing body and the social outlet for everyone. It was where people went to meet and discuss things, as well as to have religious services."

Beyond New England history, church records tell stories that would have otherwise been forgotten, says Jessica. "They have details of people's lives, people who aren't in history books."

Sometimes, clearing out the cancelled checks is necessary to find that gold.

The Congregational Library & Archives will be closed this coming Thursday and Friday, December 31 and January 1, to celebrate the New Year.

All of our online resources will be available as usual. If you have a question you'd like to ask the staff, send an us email or leave a voicemail, and we'll get back to you when we return to the office on Monday, January 4th.

We wish all of you the best in 2016.

The Congregational Library and Archives has a collection of children's books that may have been given as Christmas gifts in the late 19th century. The Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society published children's books between 1841 and 1917, intended for use in Sunday school or in the home. The publishing house itself is an interesting story, one we have in our records.

[]These books were used by Congregational Sunday school teachers and ministers to teach children the popular Christian and social values of the time.  We can imagine children reading these stories in the 1890s, hunkered down with their families in the depths of winter, or sitting in Sunday school being read to by their teacher. The two stories we will look at transmit messages about the relationship between faith, material wealth, and personal success.

In the 1890s, this was a topic of great interest and concern in churches. Many Americans were becoming wealthier than ever, but others around them were destitute. The growing disparity between the haves and have-nots was troubling to a growing number of ministers, who began to wonder what the church should do about it. Ministers asked, "What would Jesus do about the plight of the working poor among us? Is the gospel of Jesus a plan of personal salvation only, or is it also a plan of social salvation that requires social reform?" Their misgivings eventually solidified as the Social Gospel movement.

The Social Gospel split Congregationalists into two camps. Advocates of the Social Gospel believed the plight of the working poor was primarily due to social injustices that could be rectified through reform and legislative action. Opponents of this view insisted that poverty was inevitable because of human sinfulness, and advocated personal repentance.

The two stories discussed here show the dominance of the latter argument in the 1890s. Even books for children pushed the view that societal ills should not be of concern to Christians.

The first story, "The Best Possible Christmas," addresses this question. It was written by Rev. Alexander Twombly for his youngest parishioners at Winthrop Church in Charlestown, Massachusetts, and published by the Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society.

The story's protagonist, Pansy Trot, is shown three versions of Christmas in a dream. But instead of Christmas past, present or future, Pansy sees three versions of the best possible Christmas.

The first vision is a Christmas without poverty.

"In the square there was a great jubilee of children…Boys and girls were dancing about a huge pile of books, toys, pen-knives, dolls, wax candles, and everything else, and as they helped themselves, they sang a song,—beginning, ‘Old Poverty is dead so we'll be fed, With muffins hot and good white bread.'"

But the vision of a plentiful Christmas quickly sours. "Everybody Pansy met looked cross." The old washerwoman to whom Patsy's family usually brings gifts on Christmas morning is lonely: since she has everything she needs and Pansy's family no longer has a reason to visit. Even wealthy people are worse off after the death of poverty. Pansy sees a man who is angry that his gift has been turned down.

"A great Christmas this is! No poor folks, no chance to enjoy sending them turkeys or sixpences! Well I don't want to and I won't. What's the good in doing good for other people anyway? They never thank you."

Pansy begs to leave the first vision, since it is not the best possible Christmas. In the second dream, sickness is banished. Everyone is healthy and flush, but this vision also troubles Pansy. As she observes,

"Everybody was saying, ‘Isn't it a happy day? No more sickness, no more pain!' But nobody seemed to think they ought to go to church to thank the Author of their great deliverance."

This cannot be the best possible Christmas either. Pansy's third vision of Christmas is holy light shining on everything she sees. There is sickness, poverty, and death all around her, but people are able to bear it because of the light. This, she realizes, is the best possible Christmas.

"Even Pansy, though a child, had found out that no Christmas can be the best possible unless the Savior puts into it and into our hearts, his own sympathy with suffering. [Christmas] might come with poverty, it may have sickness in it; but it is the best—when the Wonderful Being born in Bethlehem is born again in human hearts, to bless and save."

Without suffering, the story says, families no longer care for each other, everybody is selfish, and people have no use for God. Sickness and poverty are presented as necessary evils, part of the path toward individual salvation. This stands in sharp contrast to the Social Gospel perspective that much poverty and suffering can be remedied through social reform.

The second story is titled "The Sleigh Ride" and comes from another collection, also published by the Congregational Sunday-School and Publishing Society. This story connects personal piety and kindness to the achievement of financial success. The story begins as Margaret, "a little girl, a child of very poor but respectable parents," asks for a sleigh ride from Joel, "a strong, rough boy, who was not very regular in his attendance at school." Joel tends not to be very generous, and yet he concedes to give Margaret a ride.

"When she said to Joel, with a timid voice, won't you give me a ride on your sled? he was at first disposed to reply, No! what business have you to have a ride? Something seemed to close his mouth against the utterance of those words."

Joel decides to pull Margaret through the town on his sled, and feels the immediate reward of being kind to others.

"Joel said to himself, am I not a fool for giving this girl a ride? I shall never get anything for it. She is little better than a poorhouse girl. At this moment, Margaret came out with so happy an expression of countenance that Joel could not help feeling its influence; and, without acknowledging it to himself, he felt that he had already got something for his kindness to the poor girl."

But seeing Margaret's happiness is not enough for the story. "The Sleigh Ride" ends with a rich gentleman witnessing Joel's compassion for Margaret. He gives Joel a job, and eventually helps him go into business for himself. Through the kindness of a capitalist, Joel was given access to economic advancement.

This version of success and social advancement places the emphasis on random acts of kindness and the generosity of social superiors, rather than the social structures and circumstances that trapped Margaret's family in poverty and kept Joel out of school.

Churches and parents used children's stories to imparting society's values to children. These two stories show how the prevailing Gilded Age values of individual virtue and personal piety were woven into Christian stories for children. The emphasis of most, if not all, was on the development of Christian character. No thought was given to the Social Gospel concerns of societal sin or social reform. Instead, Christian stories for children taught that social problems such as poverty, suffering and injustices were inevitable, but society's ills were made more bearable through one's faith in a loving Savior, and He is all the world needs. While not denying the truth of those religious sentiments, proponents of the Social Gospel fought an uphill battle for social reform to alleviate suffering and establish justice for all so that God's will may be done on earth as it is in heaven.

Read these stories in the upcoming issue of the Bulletin, free to all members of the Congregational Library and Archives. Become a member to make sure you get a copy.

 

-- Norman Erlendson and Joanna Albertson-Grove

 

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illustration from The sleigh-ride, and other stories (1872)

 

As we approach the end of the year, we reflect on our blessings with our families and prepare for the upcoming holidays. Here at the Congregational Library & Archives, we hope that you will keep us in your thoughts, as well.

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We encourage you to take the opportunity of Giving Tuesday to allocate your charitable giving, and we hope that you will make us a part of that. Our memberships are as little as $25 for students, and every donation is appreciated, no matter how small.

Your support allows us to provide services to researchers of all backgrounds, care for rare and unique historical materials, and increase public access to information that might otherwise be hidden from the world. Help us tell the stories of early New England and its people. Help us preserve our past for future generations. Be a part of our ongoing mission to ensure that history matters.

Whether you become a member or simply make a donation, we will put every contribution to good use.

[]The Congregational Library & Archives will be closed this coming Wednesday through Friday, November 25-27, in observance of Thanksgiving.

All of our online resources will be available as usual. If you have a question you'd like to ask the staff, send an us email or leave a voicemail, and we'll get back to you when we return to the office on Monday, November 30th.

We wish all of you a safe and happy holiday.

[]Peggy Bendroth's new book The Last Puritans: Mainline Protestants and the Power of the Past is not a story about Thanksgiving. But the declaration of Thanksgiving as a national holiday, one of Abraham Lincoln's last acts as president, came at a striking moment for Congregationalists. Like the rest of the country they were struggling with some big existential questions as the Civil War wound to its conclusion. In their case the problem was history, and whether their storied New England past would be a help or a hindrance as they contemplated their future.

Congregationalists met in Boston in 1865, the first truly national gathering since the Cambridge Synod of 1648, determined to refit the old Congregational Way for new times and new challenges. Did being a Congregationalist mean believing a certain set of doctrines — maybe even Calvinism — or was the bottom line the independence of local churches? Which would best honor the Puritans?

The historical context of the Civil War and the Thanksgiving holiday made these question all the more urgent for those considering the Puritan legacy at the national council in 1865. Bendroth writes,

"The delegates did not just invoke the Pilgrims, they identified with them, having just 'emerged from the stormy deeps of a civil war' to find themselves 'standing on the verge of a vast and mysterious continent of the future.' We do to this day, they said, 'lift the psalm of thanksgiving where our fathers lifted it, mingling, as did theirs with the oar of the Atlantic surge to Him that sitteth King and Lord for evermore.'"

Without a doubt that Pilgrim and Puritan legacy brought Congregationalists into the center of the national mainstream. Suddenly, everyone gave thanks with a feast, and the image of a buckle-hatted pilgrim could be found hawking bread and gelatin. Puritans were everywhere. Thanksgiving made all Americans feel connected to the Puritans, and in a way, the story of Thanksgiving was elevated beyond any single denomination. Would Congregationalists keep their own story alive in the midst of all that celebration? Did the holiday have special meaning for them? And how would they honor the past while keeping their eyes on the future? Pick up Peggy's book to read the whole story.

Don't forget to reserve your seat for this month's free lunchtime lecture with eminent historian Francis J. Bremer.

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[]The historian James F. Cooper examined in great detail the exercise of power by the member of puritan congregations in his study entitled Tenacious of their Liberties: The Congregationalists in Colonial Massachusetts. Drawing on his recently published book — Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism — Dr. Bremer will discuss the importance of the laity in the actual development of puritan Congregational belief and practice. Using previously neglected sources he will examine how belief in the ability of ordinary Christians to read and understand the scripture led to a variety of practices such as lay conferencing, prophesying, and even preaching that were key components of early puritanism.

Francis J. Bremer is Professor Emeritus of History at Millersville University of Pennsylvania. He received his BA from Fordham College and his MA and PhD from Columbia University, while also studying at Union Theological Seminary. He has been a visiting scholar at New York University, Oxford University, the University of Cambridge and Trinity College Dublin. Dr. Bremer is one of the acknowledged experts on puritanism in the Atlantic world and has published numerous articles and seventeen books on the subject. His study of John Winthrop: America's Forgotten Founding Father (2003) was submitted for consideration for the Pulitzer Prize and won the John C. Pollock Award for Christian Biography. His recent works include Puritanism: A Very Short Introduction (2009); First Founders: American Puritans and Puritanism in the Atlantic World (2012) – a selection of the History Book Club; Building a New Jerusalem: John Davenport, a Puritan in Three Worlds (2012) – shortlisted for the New England Society in the City of New York Award for Non Fiction 2013 and the 2013 Award in Nonfiction of the Mountain & Plains Independent Booksellers Association; and Lay Empowerment and the Development of Puritanism (2015).

If you'd like a preview of Prof. Bremer, check out our video interview with him from a few years ago.

 

Thursday, November 12th
12:00 - 1:30 pm

Free
Register through Eventbrite.

 

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Portrait of an Old Woman Reading (ca. 1630-1635) by Gerrit Dou courtesy of the Rijksmuseum Amsterdam via Wikimedia Commons

Last month, the New York Public Library announced that they had made the papers of Major Joseph Hawley available online.

Hawley was a lawyer, legislator, and militia officer from Northampton, Massachusetts. He also became one of the leaders of the American revolutionary movement in western Massachusetts. The collection contains documents related to his private life, religion in eighteenth-century America, and public affairs in Northampton and Massachusetts during the revolutionary era.

This caught my eye, because one of the earliest collections the Congregational Library & Archives published as part of our New England's Hidden Histories program was the journals of itinerant missionary Gideon Hawley.[]

Joseph (1723-1788) and Gideon (1727-1807) were both from southwestern New England, they were about the same age, and they shared a surname. Additionally, both had personal ties to Jonathan Edwards — Joseph was a contentious congregant in Edwards's church at Northampton; Gideon served under Edwards's supervision, first as a student in Stockbridge, and later as a missionary to the Housatonic Indians. Surely, there had to be a family connection. After a fair bit of digging on various genealogical websites, I finally nailed it down. Major Joseph Hawley and Rev. Gideon Hawley were third cousins, the great-grandsons of brothers Thomas Hawley (1609-1676) and Joseph Hawley (ca.1603-1690) respectively, who emigrated from Derbyshire, England around 1635.

Finding these kinds of connections with other libraries is not only fun and interesting, it also allows us to better help our researchers. If you learn about other collections related to ours, please let us know. You never know how useful that information might be to someone else.

--Robin

The movement of people from one place to another always strains societies. Today's debate about who to let in and who to keep out of Europe and the United States echoes similar conflagrations from the past. The Congregational Library & Archives has sermons and pamphlets from the mid-19th century discussing arriving waves of immigrants in the United States.

The Irish, fleeing poverty and increasingly reactionary government in their home country, arrived en masse to the United States in the 1840s. Documents in the CLA's collection illuminate striking similarities between this migration and the arrivals in Europe today.

The business of moving people across the Mediterranean Sea into Europe has taken off since 2011. As Europe's borders become more tightly controlled, more migrants need help crossing. Migrant smugglers provide these services — everything from forging immigration papers to providing the low-cost transport methods that have caused so many deaths. The process was not much easier in the 1800s.

In 1851 and 1852, Edward E. Hale wrote a series of letters to the editor published in the Boston Advertiser. He explains the difficulty of negotiating border crossings:

"Emigrants do not themselves usually make their bargains with the masters or owners of ships, —but are brought together and put on board by some 'passenger broker' with whom they have contracted, and who furnishes their stores. Instances of fraud and cruelty on the part of these men sometimes take place, but, on the whole, they are not so many as in so immense a business, as one might have feared."

Emigrating by sea has changed little since the 1840s. It seems there is always another story of people dying as they seek refuge in Europe. Hale wrote of similarly dangerous journey from Ireland to North America, what he called the "terrors of the summer passage of 1847." Writing in December of 1851, he said:

"The experience of the awful suffering of emigrants in 1847, when, of 90,000 who embarked for Canada on British vessels, 15,000 died on the way, or after arrival, called the attention of the English government to the necessity of a more stringent law for passenger vessels."

Hale went on to describe the regulation that the British and American governments placed on passenger ships: 14 square feet of space per passenger, and a set ration of food and water for the length of the crossing to New York. Unfortunately, there are no such regulations in place to protect migrants today.

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Congregational missionaries on Ellis Island greeted new arrivals in the 1800s, and helped the often-bewildered newcomers. The Congregational Home Missionary Society published a pamphlet about the experience, called "Daily Tasks on Ellis Island".

"The missionary must often take the place of a lawyer and make an appeal for an excluded immigrant who has a right to one but is helpless to obtain it himself. … The missionary must be a friend to win the confidence of the bewildered immigrant, who has gone through a great deal of previous examination. This takes some time, but success comes with perseverance. The immigrant has no one in whom to confide the story of his or her heart. The mind must be unburdened, and here the missionary acts as comforter and adviser."

Missionaries helped immigrants arrange travel to other cities join friends and relatives, visited them in hospitals, and helped them avoid scams. The work was difficult, but rewarding.

"The work at Ellis Island is full of care, and often brings pathetic experiences which make a large draft on one's sympathy. But there are so many hopeful things about, so many opportunities to bring happiness and cheer into the lives of strangers, that after all there is a glow of joy and satisfaction even in the most trying and discouraging days."

Today, we hear uplifting stories about Europeans bringing migrants food and water, or helping them call loved ones they left behind.

But not everyone is so welcoming. Anti-immigrant demonstrations have become commonplace in Germany, and human rights groups are reporting a spike in hate crimes in Europe. Some are concerned about the cultural impact of a large group of Muslims on majority-Christian countries. Others worry about the potential economic burden of impoverished migrants and refugees.

In his time, Hale was concerned about the impact the millions of newcomers had on the East Coast. While the "cream of the emigrants" moved on to the West, "The 'lame, blind deaf, idiotic, and lunatic,' as our statutes describe them, are strained off by the Eastern States, and remain to fill up our alms-houses and hospitals." He continued, "The public charge of Massachusetts for such persons is larger I think, than of any other State in the Union, New York not excepted." Hale was compassionate, and saw justice in the government caring for the newcomers. He wrote, "It is for the government of the nation to take a trifle from him in his prosperity with which to support hospitals for his sickness."

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For all his sympathy, Hale considered even the "cream" of the Irish to be "inefficient as compared with the Saxon and other Germanic races which receive them." However, he welcomed the idea of 'inferior' people as much-needed labor. "Their inferiority as a race compels them to go to the bottom; and the consequence is that we are, all of us, the higher lifted because they are here. … No one can fail to observe… that to the ready transfer of emigrant population to the west, the government owes all the worth of its Western lands."

The United States needed the emigrants in the 1850s as much as they needed the United States. Hale wrote, "…by every laboring man who arrives, the danger of starvation becomes less and less."

Today, many economists say immigrants will help keep social security afloat for Europe's aging population. Germany in particular needs immigration to increase its workforce, and so is preparing to welcome 800,000 newcomers this year. Like the United States in the 1850s, Europe needs immigrants.

The documents in the Congregational Library & Archives hold a mirror to our contemporary dilemmas, and bring us powerful voices from the past. History matters at the Congregational Library & Archives. No matter what the dilemma, our librarians and archivists can help navigate the past to understand the present.

-Joanna

 

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images of "State Emigrant Landing Depot, Castle Garden, NY" by Roylance-Purcell engravers, and "Verplanck State Emigrant Hospital, Ward's Island, NY" by J. Shearman from Immigration and the Commissioners of Emigration of the state of New York by Friedrich Kapp (1870)

Seats are filling up fast, so don't forget to reserve yours for this month's free lunchtime lecture.

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Food and Spirituality in Early Boston

[]The physical hardships of creating the Massachusetts Bay Colony were extreme, especially for unprepared English colonists, most of whom were from urban areas. Hunger and even starvation was a constant part of their lives, and in this crucible of suffering the colony was transformed. Unlike other English settlements, Massachusetts became a place where people deliberately sought transformation and redemption by a powerful combination of physical suffering and pure religion. As conditions improved, the Puritans of the colony found new ways to recreate the intensity of those early years; one was requiring prospective a church member to relate a convincing story of soul-searching, trial, error, and woe in conversion narratives before being allowed to partake in the most important meal of all, the Lord's Supper.

The New England's Hidden Histories program at the Congregational Library & Archives holds one of the extensive collections of conversion narratives (relations) in the world. Take a look at the Middleboro and Haverhill First Church collections in particular to learn more.

Lori Stokes received her Ph.D. from Stony Brook University. She studies the founding decades of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, focusing on the 1630s and '40s when the forms of church and state were put in place that would shape Massachusetts and American history for centuries to come. Dr. Stokes is a volunteer for the NEHH program's Church Records Transcription Project, a digital history project of the Congregational Library & Archives in Boston led by Puritan scholar Dr. James F. Cooper, a director of NEHH.

 

Thursday, October 15th
12:00 - 1:00 pm

Free
Register through Eventbrite.

 

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woodcut of "wicked Ranters" from the book Hell Broke Loose: or, the Notorious Design of the Wicked Ranters... (1651)

The Congregational Library & Archives will be closed this coming Monday, October 12th, in observance of Columbus Day.

All of our online resources will be available as usual. If you have a question you'd like to ask the staff, send an us email or leave a voicemail, and we'll get back to you when we return on Tuesday.

We hope you have a safe and happy holiday weekend.

As we mentioned back in June, our executive director Peggy Bendroth is an esteemed historian and prolific author. Her latest book, The Last Puritans: Mainline Protestants and the Power of the Past, has now been published and added to our collection. You can order a copy of your own from your favorite online or brick-and-mortar bookseller, or become a member of the Congregational Library and Archives to borrow one of ours.

[]Congregationalists, the oldest group of American Protestants, are the heirs of New England's first founders. While they were key characters in the story of early American history, from Plymouth Rock and the founding of Harvard and Yale to the Revolutionary War, their luster and numbers have faded. But Margaret Bendroth's critical history of Congregationalism over the past two centuries reveals how the denomination is essential for understanding mainline Protestantism in the making.

Bendroth chronicles how the New England Puritans, known for their moral and doctrinal rigor, came to be the antecedents of the United Church of Christ, one of the most liberal of all Protestant denominations today. The demands of competition in the American religious marketplace spurred Congregationalists, Bendroth argues, to face their distinctive history. By engaging deeply with their denomination's storied past, they recast their modern identity. The soul-searching took diverse forms — from letter writing and eloquent sermonizing to Pilgrim-celebrating Thanksgiving pageants — as Congregationalists renegotiated old obligations to their seventeenth-century spiritual ancestors. The result was a modern piety that stood a respectful but ironic distance from the past and made a crucial contribution to the American ethos of religious tolerance.

College freshmen are settling into their new dorm rooms and starting classes this month, congregating on campuses with the common goal of improving their minds. It was the same in the fall of 1850 when Aaron Lucius Chapin addressed Beloit College. "Year by year, it gathers into its bosom a crowd of bright youth drawn from families of every rank and profession." Chapin was a Congregational minister and the first president of Beloit College. Inspired by Congregational missionaries in the United States and abroad, he was part of a movement to found a dozen Congregational colleges in the mid-1800s.

[]Chapin and his contemporaries took up mission work to make New England values, religion, and education accessible to people outside the northeastern United States. A Yale graduate himself, Chapin felt obligated to extend the privilege of his education to others by replicating a Yale education, and what he called the 'virtuous society' he found in new England across the growing country. Writing in 1850, Chapin saw this process beginning.

"You and I, brother, as sons of Yale, have enjoyed singular advantages, and it behooves us to do what we can to transmit these blessings to succeeding generations, who shall occupy these verdant prairies and be planted along this silvery stream, destined at no distant day to become the crowded residence of wealth, intelligence, and refinement, and all the attractions of virtuous society, in its highest style and development. What was, fifteen years back, the wild man's hunting ground, in fifteen years more, will be as near a paradise as we shall be likely to find on this side Heaven."

For Chapin, academic discipline was inseparable from spiritual rigor, and a college was the best place to instill both in young people. The state universities springing up in the Midwest were too secular for Chapin's taste. He preferred colleges like Yale and Harvard, where New England Congregational values blended with English university academics. But Chapin saw those colleges as distant trees, whose seeds of education could hardly be expected to float all the way to Wisconsin. If a college was local, thought Chapin, its virtuous influence on the community would be stronger.

"A hand from the East will be stretched out to help on the establishment of genuine Christian colleges, judiciously located here and there in the West," wrote Chapin. Beloit College was part of a larger project by Congregationalists at the time to extend their influence outside of New England. Congregational missionaries travelled to frontier towns from the East Coast, both to convert native people and to keep settlers on the proper Christian path. Education was one of the central goals of the Congregational missionaries because it was so closely intertwined with their faith. In 1878, Chapin spoke before to the Mission Board.

"To secure and make abiding these results in all of those young States, colleges have been founded. They are the natural outgrowth of Home Missions. They stand as fortresses to maintain the ascendancy of the truth. In them recruits are trained for service on the field. They are living fountains in which science and religion — kindred elements — are blended according to their natural affinity, to pour forth into the forthcoming civilization healthful streams of intelligence and refined culture."

Many early graduates of Beloit College fulfilled Chapin's vision, and went on to serve as missionaries elsewhere in the United States and abroad.

Congregationalist missionaries founded colleges stretching from Pennsylvania to Utah, all founded in the same spirit of bringing New England values to people in the West. The colleges were meant to be "permanent centers of Christian influence," as Chapin wrote. History intervened.

"In the 1950s and early 1960s, Beloit College had transferred to a more civic-religious sense of identity. It still called itself a Christian college, but it had moved away from call itself Congregational," explained Bill Conover, who runs Beloit's present-day Spiritual Life Program. "The 1960s brought a sense of secularism and a sense of upheaval across our campus and other Christian institutions. The faculty took a vote to take 'Christian' out of the college's name an identity." A Protestant chaplaincy remained until the 1970s, but it was cut during a budget crisis.

Ashley Cleere is the chaplain of Piedmont College, one of two colleges still affiliated with the Congregational tradition. She thinks the gradual secularization of Congregational colleges was a result of Congregationalism's decentralized nature. "Congregational colleges don't have the burden of doctrine they have to maintain on campus, and we don't have something like a denomination giving us money," said Cleere. "It's part of the nature of Congregationalism that made it easy to drift away."

"I would guess that I'm one of a handful of people who even know about the historic connection with the Congregational church," said Beloit's Conover.

Although the explicit Christianity is gone from most Congregational colleges, the tradition of learning, openness, and self-improvement is as strong for the freshmen who started at Beloit College this month as it was for the students Chapin addressed in 1850. Conover sees Congregationalism's stamp even on the secular Beloit College campus. "In the life of the institution, someone who knows Congregational values would really see them," he says. "Congregationalism is really associated with a strong emphasis on freedom of conscience and speech. I feel like there is kind of a Puritan-influenced sense of the necessity of constant improvement, and we really value the project of endless improvement and reform."

The Congregational Library & Archives' collections include many documents related to Congregational colleges founded by American missionaries.