Congregational Library

Mount Vernon Congregational Church, Boston

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

New Books

We've added two new books to the circulating collection this week.

 

Founding the Fathers: Early Church History and Protestant Professors in Nineteenth-Century America by Elizabeth A. Clark.

"Founding the Fathers is sweeping in its view of the history of American higher education, its comprehensive sense of the study of religion, and its firm grasp of the transnational scope of nineteenth-century theological learning. An original and substantial contribution to both American intellectual history and the history of early Christian studies."—Leigh Eric Schmidt, Harvard University

Elizabeth A. Clark is John Carlisle Kilgo Professor of Religion and Professor of History at Duke University. She is the author of numerous books, including Reading Renunciation: Asceticism and Scripture in Early Christianity and History, Theory, Text: Historians and the Linguistic Turn.

 

 

A Reforming People: Puritanism and the Transformation of Public Life in New England by Donald D. Hall

Hall "shows that the colonists, in contrast to their contemporaries in England, were ambitious to restore the religious practice of the earliest Christian communities, the Congregational Way. Hall's first-rate book offers a glimpse of a small slice of American religious history, challenging prevailing ideas about the nature of reform in Puritan New England." -Publishers Weekly

David D. Hall is Bartlett Research Professor of New England Church History at Harvard Divinity School. He is the author or editor of numerous books on American religious and cultural history.

 

-Claudette

More on King James Bible Anniversary

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

John Robinson by Ozora S. Davis

Although we have other copies of John Robinson: the Pilgrim Pastor, we found a wonderful edition in the books we received from Chicago Theological Seminary. We believe this to be a copy owned by Ozora S. Davis or perhaps a family member. Many announcements and reviews have been pasted into this book on the inside front and back covers and other blank pages. Clippings from The Congregationalist, Jan. 2, 1904, Churchman, Feb.20, 1904, and Chicago Standard, Jan. 21, 1905 are just a few examples.

Additionally, we found letters tipped in between the pages. Letters were written to Mr. Davis by Edwin D. Meade, Williston Walker who wrote the introduction, Morton Dexter, N. Boynton, and George W. Shinn. A few marginal notes are located on blank pages.

And as a reminder of the Library's influence in the publication of this book, Mr. Davis wrote in the preface, "Without the assistance and encouragement of Rev. W. H. Cobb, D. D., Librarian of the Congregational Library..., the work never could have been completed."

We are excited to add this copy to our special collections.

-Claudette

Fun facts and unexpected surprises

 

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

Boston’s Park Street Church and Rev. Arcturus Z. Conrad

Park Street Church is one of the iconic churches in downtown Boston. While many people think of William Lloyd Garrison, a prominent abolitionist, when thinking of the church, there were many other preachers who graced the pulpit at Park Street Church. One example is Rev. Arcturus Zodiac Conrad, D.D., (1855-1937), who was pastor at Park Street Church from 1905 to 1937. The following images show Rev. Conrad in the church. The images also show different parts of the church, both exterior and interior.

Rev. Conrad was ordained Presbyterian, but entered the Congregational fellowship in 1890. His first Congregational pulpit was at First (Old South) Church, Worcester, Mass., from 1890-1902. While in Boston, Conrad was also involved in organizations like the Boston City Missionary Society. More information on Conrad's affiliations and publications can be seen in the 1937 Congregational Yearbook. For more information on Park Street Church, search "Park Street Church (Boston, Mass.)" under "Subject" in the Congregational Library online catalog.

--Abraham

Update on Catharine Brown, and a continuation of the Cherokee theme this week

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

2011 MA History Conference, Off the Record: Telling Lives of People Hidden in Plain Sight

We just got word about an upcoming event. They write:

"Off the Record: Telling Lives of People Hidden in Plain Sight" explores historical programming (exhibits, tours, talks, websites, etc) featuring people who are not often 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. Plan to join us on Monday, June 6th at Holy Cross to continue our exploration of the personal narrative in Massachusetts history!

Last year, we looked at using some of the materials you or your historical organization have easy access to. It begged the question, "but what about the stories of the people in this town who are not represented in the collections, not as obvious in the record?"

• Where do we go to find out?
• How do we tell stories of lives that may not have full names and photographs in our collections?

This year's conference aims to present some approaches to

• finding information on people who are less prominent in the record (people without property, collections of letters, diaries) both in your collection (account books, other ledgers, fence viewers' records, town and church vital records) and in other records (census, probate, court records, poor house records)
• creating programming with that information

For more information, visit Mass Humanities, including registration information.

-Peggy

Cherokee Almanac 1857

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

Patient Coming to the Hospital

The Congregational Library has many photographs and graphic materials that have very little description to them. The following photograph sat on display in an office at the library for a while before being cataloged. I find this print to be aesthetically pleasing because my focus is initially drawn to the procession in the foreground. The focus is then drawn to the background through the left-most person looking towards the hills.

The only description of the print is the caption on the back: “Patient coming to the hospital.” There are still many questions about the print. What hospital? Who is the patient? Where and when was the photograph taken? Is the caption accurate? I am under the belief that these are missionaries. If any of you have an answer to any of these questions, please leave a comment below or on the Flickr photo page.

--Abraham