Beacon Street Diary

CL Refresher Course -- online resources

It's research season here at the library! Universities are wrapping up their fall semesters, ministers are preparing their Christmas programs, and genealogists and historians are taking advantage of holiday travel to stop in and use our unique resources. As such, we thought this would be a good time to put together a series of posts containing tips, frequently asked questions, and links to relevant resources to help you find what you're looking for.

First up: an overview of our websites and social media accounts.

 

CongregationalLibrary.org is our main website. There you can find a wealth of information about the history of American Congregationalism, the Christian (Connection) denomination, and early American history. We also provide finding guides to our archival collections; a database of clergy and missionary obituaries; resources for church historians, librarians, and record keepers; a calendar of events and educational workshops; information about the library itself; and much more. If you become a supporting member of the library, you can sign up for an account that allows you to access video seminars and back issues of our bulletin.

Our online catalog is updated daily with new materials from our collections. We have already added records for all of our archival collections, biographies, printed sermons, books on Congregational history, missions materials, commentaries, reference books, and new books published in the past decade. Our catalogers are currently hard at work adding individual church histories and the donations we received earlier this year from the Chicago Theological Seminary. If your searching doesn't indicate that we own something you think we should, please feel free to contact us and inquire further.

Our digital exhibit site launched earlier this year. It holds a growing collection of digital images and documents from our physical collections that we have arranged into exhibits about specific historical topics. The first is a reproduction of the 1843 Boston Almanac's catalog of the churches in Boston. The second is a history of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions that we created to commemorate the organization's bicentennial. We have more exhibits in the works and will let you know as soon as they are completed. You can also look at the catalog records for individual digitized items, which contain more information about their subjects and origins.

Our blog is hosted on Typepad, and updated three or four times each week. We strive to bring you a mix of topics including historical information, featured items from our collections, useful resources, and current events, as well as keeping you up-to-date with what's happening here at the library. Whether you make a habit of visiting the blog directly, view it in an RSS reader, or get updates on new posts through Facebook or Twitter, we hope you enjoy it.

Our Facebook page receives the posts from the blog for those of you who prefer to read them in your friend feed. We also use it to interact with our patrons and other institutions, and to provide links to news items that don't necessarily warrant a full blog article.

Our Twitter account receives notifications of new blog posts for those of you who like getting them that way. We also use it to check in from the various conferences staff members attend throughout the year.

 

So, that's where you can find us online. Keep an eye out for upcoming posts in this series that will delve more deeply into how you can use our resources to find the information you seek, whatever the topic may be.

--Robin

Collection maintenance and "Song of the Library Staff"

We don't talk about it much, but part of maintaining a healthy library collection is weeding out materials that don't meet the needs of our patrons. Since the policy here at the Congregational Library for the first century or so was to accept whatever was offered or bequeathed to us, we've ended up with some quirky items over the years. Ministers' personal collections contain not only the books they used in their pastoral work, but also materials about their hobbies and outside interests.

We have also accumulated a number of items by or about local people that have historical importance, but don't necessarily fit in our collection. One such item we came across recently was a booklet of poetry called The Song of the Library Staff written by Sam Walter Foss, an early 20th-century librarian from just across the river in Somerville. It's a lovely little collection celebrating -- and poking a bit of fun at -- the helpful employees of a public library. There are illustrations by Merle Johnson accompanying each verse. (Luckily for me, it was published in 1906, long before modern computers, let alone the role of the library webmaster.)

While this pamphlet might amuse us personally, it doesn't really belong in our collection alongside church records, Bible commentaries, sermons, pastoral theology books, religious history references, American history texts, and genealogical resources. Anyone interested in reading it can do so easily. It has been republished several times, is owned by over 150 libraries across the country, and is available to view online through the Internet Archive. These sorts of things and more are taken into account when we're deciding whether each item is in keeping with our mission and obligations to you.

And fear not. Anything interesting or useful that we remove from our collections isn't just thrown away. We make every effort to ensure that they go to other places where they will be appreciated and used.

--Robin

Scheduling notice -- closed for Thanksgiving

The library will be closed this Thursday and Friday, November 24th & 25th.

All of our online resources will be available as always. If you have an inquiry that requires help from the staff, please send us an email or leave a voicemail, and we'll get back to you next week.

Two new books

We've just added two new books to the collection.

The first is Catch'd on Fire: the Journals of Rufus Hawley, Avon, Connecticut by Nora Oakes Howard. The description from Amazon.com reads:

Rufus Hawley was a man of extraordinary actions and little means. The Yale-educated pastor served Farmington's Parish of Northington, presently Avon, for forty-eight years through some of the most tumultuous periods in the town's history. Hawley prayed with the Continental army during the American Revolution, supported abolition, searched for lost children, performed surgeries, survived smallpox and floods and established a library. Although he was able to unite a congregation, Reverend Hawley was overcome by heartbreak as loved ones perished and allegations of arson were directed toward him after his meetinghouse burned to the ground in 1818. Join Avon town historian Nora Oakes Howard as she combs through fifty years of journal entries to tell the story of a deeply complex man and a devoted pastor of his community.

The second is New Israel / New England: Jews and Puritans in Early America by Michael Hoberman. The cover description reads:

The New England Puritans' fascination with the legacy of the Jewish religion has been well documented, but their interactions with actual Jews have escaped sustained historical attention. New Israel / New England tells the story of the Sephardic merchants in Boston and Newport between the mid-seventeenth century and the era of the American Revolution. It also explores the complex and often contradictory meanings that the Puritans attached to Judaism and the fraught attitudes that they bore toward the Jews as a people.

More often than not, Michael Hoberman shows, Puriatnas though and wrote about Jews in order to resolve their own theological and cultural dilemmas. A number of prominent New Englanders, including Roger Williams, Increase Mather, Samuel Sewall, Benjamin Colman, Cotton Mather, Jonathan Edwards, and Ezra Stiles, wrote extensively about post-biblical Jews, in some cases drawing on their own personal acquaintance with Jewish contemporaries.

 

If you are looking for other books on New England history, be sure to check out our collection by visiting our online catalog.

-Claudette

Event reminder -- William Bradford of Plymouth Colony

If you're looking for something fun and educational to do tomorrow, consider coming down to the library to see J. Allyn Bradford portray his ancestor, Governor William Bradford of Plymouth Colony. Hear the story of William's journey from England to Amsterdam to the shores of the New World, and his 30-year career as leader of the group that would give birth to the United States of America.

Bring your lunch and enjoy a firsthand account of the Pilgrims as they saw themselves.

Tuesday, November 22nd
12:00 - 1:00 pm

Free.
No registration is required, but we appreciate an RSVP so we know how many people to expect.

Taking care of your books at home

If you're following this blog, chances are pretty good that you enjoy old books. There are a lot of things you can do to keep them in good condition, and Shelly Smith, head of Conservation Treatment at the New York Public Library, has put together a list of Dos and Don'ts to get you started.

These tips will help you figure out what part of the house to store your books in, how to keep their bindings intact, where to get your already damaged tomes repaired, and more.

If you'd like to go more in-depth or put these techniques into practice in a more professional setting, take a look at our resource pages for Records Management, Church Librarians, and Church Historians.

 

-Robin

New archival collection -- Fourth Church in Chicago

We are pleased to announce the posting of yet another finding guide on our website. The records of Fourth Congregational Church in Chicago, IL were donated to the library by the National Association of Congregational Christian Churches in the hopes of creating an historical legacy that would stand witness to the history of this now-small Chicago church.

Fourth Congregational Church traces its roots back to a small Sunday school founded in 1867. This Sunday school gave rise to three Chicago churches: Grace Church (1867), Cortland Street Church (1888) and Maplewood Church (1892). These three churches decided to merge in 1916, and Fourth Church was born. The records in this collection document much of the daily life of Fourth Church, with particular attention to the years 1919-1971. Also of note are the records pertaining to the 1925 fire which destroyed the church building, and the subsequent campaign to rebuild.

If you would like more information on this or other archival collections held here at the Congregational Library, please visit the website. For more information specifically on the church records in the library's collection, search the Congregational Library catalog for "Church Records and Registers."

-Sari

Event reminder -- England tour information session -- tomorrow

The historical tour of England entitled "Retracing Our Puritan Roots" is less than a year away. If you are planning to participate or are still on the fence, this is your chance to learn more.

Join co-guide Roger Burke for a look at the 12-day itinerary that will take participants on a reverse-pilgrimage from Salem, Mass. to East Anglia, England with stops at several Pilgrim sites in between.

Bring your lunch and your questions.

Wednesday, November 16th
12:00 - 1:00 pm

Free.
No registration is required, but we appreciate an RSVP so we know how many people to expect.

If you'd like to look over the itinerary beforehand, you can download it at your leisure.

Local digital history projects

I recently attended an online seminar where I found out about some exciting digital history projects from across the country. Today, I'd like to share them with you:

 

  The Queens Memory Project is a collection of images, documents, and oral histories chronicling the history of New York City's largest borough. It is a collaboration between the Queens (public) Library and Queens College, very similar to the Mass. Memories Road Show program we featured two weeks ago.

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The Tompkins County Public Library online local history resources include images, books, genealogical databases, and a Local History Spotlight series.Tompkins County, New York -- location of both the city of Ithaca and Cornell University -- has a vibrant history that is being preserved and made more accessible by the library.

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Nebraska Memories is a statewide cooperative project a lot like our own Digital Commonwealth portal here in Massachusetts. It contains more than 3,500 digitized items -- photographs, documents, artifacts, papers, manuscripts, maps and audio files -- from a dozen different institutions, and is maintained by the Nebraska Library Commission.

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The Wyoming Newspaper Project is an ambitious undertaking that has already made more than 800,000 pages of local newspaper content fully searchable. The digital archive spans nearly three-quarters of a century from 1849 to 1922.

 

If none of these is helpful in your own research, take a look at the websites for your local libraries and historical societies. You might find something just as exciting.

--Robin

Pilgrim Jubilee Memorial, 1620-1870

This print shows the front side of a medal created in commemoration of the sestercentennial (250th anniversary) of the Pilgrims landing in Plymouth. The image text reads, "Pilgrim Jubilee Memorial / 1620 / 1870."

The print shows the image at about 6 inches wide, but the coins themselves are much smaller, about one-fourth that size. They were struck in silver, copper, and brass for distribution to attendees of the anniversary celebration at the Church of the First Parish in Plymouth, Mass. The medals were designed by two members of the Pilgrim Society, Joseph E. Ellis and Asa C. Warren.

Several coin collecting websites list them as rare, but that may simply be because we have a number of the actual coins in our archive. On the reverse side is a picture of an open Bible wreathed by olive and oak branches, beneath a flying dove and the words "Whose Faith Follow". Over time, they have oxidized a bit, creating rings of color on their surfaces, but the images are still quite clear.

If you'd like to learn more about the history of the Pilgrims, search for "Pilgrims (New Plymouth Colony)" in the library catalog.

 

--Robin