Congregational Library

Notable Historical Figures - Lyman Abbott

Our new volunteer, Talya Stern, has started to write up some historical snippets. The blog will continue feature her work in the coming months-

Lyman Abbott was a preacher during the late 19^th and early 20^th centuries. Drawing greatly from popular preachers like Henry Ward Beecher, Abbott sought to convey spirituality over doctrinal specificity in his sermons. Though he read the Bible in a literal manner and believed in the possibility of miracles, Abbott felt strongly that human reason could take precedence over literal translation and thus maintained an open-minded view of man’s role within Protestantism. In addition to his role as a preacher, Abbott was the associate editor of Harper’s magazine and editor for both the Illustrated Christian Weekly and the Christian Union.  [Source: Ambassadors for Christ, Seven American Preachers, Edward Wagenknecht]

-Talya Stern

Daisie M. Helyar Scrapbook

"Photograph of a woman ," in Daisie Miller Helyar Scrapbook, Item #162

I just ran across this fantastic resource. Thanks to Claudette for pointing me towards part of the Notable Women of Simmons series, particularly Daisy Miller Helyar's digitized scrapbook. I urge you to go look at it. Normally, I loathe scrapbooks. They are almost always on acidic material. The featured items are held in with equally bad glues or tapes, which don't always keep sticking after 50-100 years.  Scanning and having a web exhibit is a brilliant solution.

This exhibit has several excellent features. I am in favor of the top scroll bar for the individual pages. The thumbnail makes it more interesting and does its job by giving you a general idea of what's on the page.

They didn't just stop at the scanned page. If you click on any individual part of the page, you get a closer image and the meta-data. Alternatively, the right side bar is another point of entry to the individual pieces. 

The neat features just keep going on and on. Another section has a local map that shows where various items from the scrapbook originated. Yet another section provides lesson plans for teachers, separate plans from K-12.

I've imagined being able to provide a resource like this. Perhaps someday I can. In the meantime, I hope our readers visit Daisy's pages.

-Jessica

ABCFM Project

As a graduate student earning my Master’s in Library Science and Archives Management, I have had two internship positions/projects at the Congregational Library.  This fall I created an exhibit to celebrate the 2010 bicentennial of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM).  Developing an exhibit is a unique project.  Not only did I have to tell a story—and a 200 year history at that—I had to do it visually rather than relying on long portions of text to convey meaning.

Initially I knew only a little about the organization—just enough to ensure I would enjoy the project.  By the end I was awed by what these men and women had accomplished.  I conducted all of my research using the library’s own collections and barely scratched the surface of the material available.

Because 200 years of history is hard to fit into two display cases, what I ended up with were snapshots—iconic figures and moments in time that capture the spirit of the organization.  For instance, there is Betsey Stockton, the first unmarried woman to be sent out by the American Board, who was born into slavery, freed and sent to the Sandwich Islands (Hawaii) to be a teacher.  Important events include Jeremiah Evarts’ battle against the Indian Removal Act of 1830 and the commissioning of the Morning Star, a missionary vessel sent from Hawaii to the Micronesian Islands.

Peter Parker, the “Father of Medical Missions,” wrote in his journal, “It is cheering […] to think of kindling fires of the gospel that shall burn when I am dead, and be a blessing to millions when my memory shall be forgotten on earth.”  Parker and the other missionaries have not been forgotten, and their impact and memories are still a blessing to us today.  Discovering stories like his inspired me time and again as I conducted my research and went on a journey through history.

The exhibits I have created provide only a brief glimpse of the story of the ABCFM.  I invite you to come in to see these snapshots of history and then begin your own journey.           

           

Below are photographs of the completed display cases:

 

-Kim Kinder

New Exhibits - American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

Our Fall semester Simmons GSLIS intern, Kim Kinder, has created two new exhibits in the library detailing the history of missions begun by the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Mission (A.B.C.F.M.). These exhibits will be in place in 2010 to commemorate the 200th Anniversary of the A.B.C.F.M. If you are in the area, stop by to see these. We will be adding information to our website in 2010 regarding this anniversary.

Claudette

Highlights of the Welch Collection

I wrote a post a few weeks ago about my progress as I have been processing the Welch Collection.  Now that my time as an intern this semester is almost done, I wanted to share some of the highlights from the audiovisual part of the collection.

The above photograph is one of my favorite items.  It shows Elizabeth (Betty)
Welch with her son, Thomas, and some of the Angolan children.  The photograph was taken in 1949, early on in the Welch family’s experience as missionaries in Portuguese Angola.  It’s hard to tell what exactly Betty is holding but all of the children seem intrigued by it and even the man standing behind her is paying attention.  This image captures one of the experiences of the Welch family while in Angola and also reveals some of the cultural differences between the missionaries and the Angolan people, with whom they were working.  From a preservation/conservation standpoint, the original slide shows some corrosion as seen in the middle of the boy on the far left in the form of an orange spot.  This reveals the fragility of the medium and shows one reason that archivists consider digitizing images, such as this one.

Another captivating part of the collection is the audio section because there are several files of traditional music, hymns, and spoken word.  It is amazing to listen to the different languages and also to hear all of the instruments that were used, including piano and drums.  One of the longer recordings features several members of the Welch family speaking and singing as part of a Christmas message to a friend.  The ability to hear the people as well as seeing the images really adds to the depth of the collection.  One example of this is from a track sung by the Lutamo Chorus and recorded by Maxwell Welch in 1953.  In the collection, it can be found on Greetings from Africa "Track 1".  A selection can be listened to by clicking on the audio file below.

Greetings from Africa track 1 clip

The Welch Collection is unique due to the fact that it has both written documents as well as audio and visual components.  All of the items together create a full view of what life was like for the Welch family as they worked as missionaries in Portuguese Angola in the late 1940s-1950s.

-Emily Glinert

Lessons in Preservation from the Archive

This week I was doing a quick sort of a church collection that piggy-backed in on another acquisition. It's a very small set of records, about 2 folders total. One of the items was a scrapbook. It's a standard mid 20th century design with horrible, acidic paper and an unreasonable use of adhesives: scotch tape, duct and electrical tapes, and some glue. In the process of rescuing the material (aka, getting them out of the scrapbook) - the bit of preservation/conservation horror that made me go looking for the camera was as you see here-

The explanation- the photograph was on the opposite page from the program. The acids in the paper and photo development chemicals were such that it burned a mirror image into its neighbor. It's creepy, interesting, and a good reason why it's good to use acid-free paper as a buffer between pages of questionable material. That way the paper takes the brunt of acid burn and can be changed out. At least this happens in an ideal world.

-Jessica

- one last arty shot

Notable Historical Figures- Benjamin Wisner

Benjamin Blydenburg Wisner (1794-1835)." Wisner was a minister at Old South Church from 1821-1832. After his pastorate at Old South Church he became the secretary of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions

Useful resource for the unemployed archivists

The New England Archivists are continuing to come up with more ways to help out the unemployed professionals amongst us. They have created a job posting page on their site- check it out.

The Thanksgiving Myth

This past week I picked up James Baker’s Thanksgiving: The Biography of an American Holiday.  Baker was Director of Research at Plimoth Plantation for many years, and I suppose that easily makes him the living authority on everything having to do with Pilgrims and Thanksgiving.

 

At the center of this book is a mystery: how the Plymouth Pilgrims ever got credit for starting our modern-day Thanksgiving tradition. There is no historical reason for imaging any connection between what we do today and that original meal, nearly four centuries, ago, when Pilgrims and Native Americans sat around a table presumably loaded with turkey, stuffing, and pumpkin pie. The Pilgrim feast, Baker says, was likely just that—a three-day celebration of the colony’s temporary success. It was not a true thanksgiving, which in the Puritan tradition was a quiet day of church-going that sometimes included a festive meal, but not necessarily—it certainly would not have included three days of unregulated feasting!

 

In fact, Baker says, the only contemporary account of the Pilgrim meal, the so-called Mourt’s Relation published in 1622, was republished without the story of the three-day feast, and the story itself lost until a new edition came out in the 1840s. By that time, the Puritan thanksgiving was heavy with patriotic and Christian significance, and it was fairly small work to fold those Pilgrims right into the mix.

 

No need to put away the big shoe buckles and pointed hats next week—but the real story of Thanksgiving is actually a lot more interesting than our rituals of overeating, football, and afternoon naps. If you’re going to lie down Thursday afternoon, I recommend taking James Baker’s book with you!

-Peggy

Intern Activities- Artifact Collections at the Congregational Library

Our advanced archive class intern shares his experience with his project -

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The Congregational Library is home to more than books, manuscript collections, and archival collections.  A hidden collection exists alongside the books and paper.  We have known about the existence of these artifact collections for some time, but a project is now underway to reveal the three-dimensional materials.  The project, led by an intern from Simmons College GSLIS, is only in the beginning stages, but a researcher can view the records for these objects by searching “Object Collection” under 'Series' in the Congregational Library Catalog.

 

Revealing these materials is more complicated than simply taking a camera and photographing the object.  How does the cataloger describe the object?  How does the cataloger describe varied objects, ranging from Hebrew scrolls to Buddhist texts, and from ceremonial gavels to communion sets?  The Congregational Library has developed a set of procedures and guidelines, modified from the bibliographic standard AACR2, which allows the cataloger to apply similar standards across a wide array of material.

 

Two examples of items cataloged under this project are from the S. Brainard Pratt collection.  Pratt was a prolific collector of Bibles and religious artifacts.  We have a scroll in Hebrew of the Book of Ecclesiastes.  This scroll is primarily made of wood and parchment.  The scroll was procured for Pratt through the U.S. Consulate in Jerusalem.

 

 

Pratt also obtained a set of human bones “formerly worn as ornaments.”  These are from the Sandwich Islands, dating to around 1840.

These two artifacts illustrate the variety of collections at the Congregational Library.  Please continue to check for updates in this blog on what is happening at the Congregational Library.

-Abraham Miller