Beacon Street Diary

Intern wrap-up -- Trevor Winn

The Congregational Library exists to preserve the rich history of the Congregational tradition and provide a repository for clergy, religious scholars, or curious parishioners who wish to gain a fuller understanding of Congregationalism past and present. Throughout the past few months, as a student at the Boston University School of Theology, I have interned at the CL and was given the task of organizing a portion of the vast collection given to the library by Chicago Theological Seminary earlier this year. The hundreds of boxes delivered to the library contained a variety of texts, some new, some old; some religious, some secular. Anyone who's handled aging books knows how messy they can be, and this semester was no exception. Leather-bound books are beautiful... until they begin to disintegrate from wear and age! On many a Friday afternoon my stained hands showed just how important simple preservation measures can be for the life of the physical book, and the valuable information it contains.

Individual monographs and multi-volume sets were a significant portion of the materials I regularly handled. Chicago Theological Seminary's gift included the works of many prominent thinkers, including Stephen Charnock, Thomas Brooks, David Clarkson, Joseph Bellamy, William Law, Edmund Calamy and Thomas Chubb to name a few. Many of these multi-volume sets had been rebound and will surely last for future generations. Also included is an improved set of the works of Jonathan Edwards; not surprisingly several of the library's copies were well worn to the point of disrepair. Also among the collection were many general association and convention reports of various state congregational organizations, many of which the library already held, although the library's holdings of western states such as North Dakota and Washington were strengthened.

CTS also sent a fair number of periodicals which needed to be checked against the library's holdings not only online, but also in the stacks themselves to assess their physical condition. Here too the collection from CTS proved valuable, and a number of the CL's copies were replaced with identical editions in modern or superior bindings. I had not previously had extensive experience with 19th century periodicals, and it is an understatement to say they are complicated. A quick glance at one of the library's (very helpful) periodical finding aids will show that a magazine's title likely changed as often as the wind. That said, with the help of Claudette and other staff at the library, I was able to sort through a portion of the periodicals to the betterment of the library's collection. There remains work to be done, and while a dent has been put in the large collection from CTS, the semester has been fruitful and it was a pleasure working with Claudette who fielded my many questions graciously.

 

-Trevor Winn

Did the Puritans celebrate Christmas?

We are all probably familiar with the stereotype of the New England Puritans as the ultimate kill-joys, always on the alert, as H. L. Mencken once said, for fear that "somewhere someone was having fun". What better evidence than the fact that they refused to celebrate Christmas? In 1659 the Massachusetts Bay General Court officially banned the holiday; anyone caught taking the day off or even 'feasting' was liable for a fine. Cotton Mather himself declared Christmas an "affront unto the grace of God". "Can you in your consciences think that our holy savior is honored by mirth," he demanded of his flock, "by long eating, by hard drinking, by lewd gaming, [or] by rude reveling? ... Shall it be said that at the birth of our Saviour ... we take the time to please the hellish legions and to do actions that have much more of hell than of heaven in them?"

But as is so often true, context is everything. The Puritans' resistance to Christmas formed at least partly in response to over-the-top celebrations in the English court. As Penne Restad writes in her wonderfully informative book, Christmas in America, the "annual indulgence in eating, dancing, singing, sporting, card playing, and gambling escalated to magnificent proportions" during the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries. King James I, of Bible fame, was said to have hosted a "moderate dinner" with a first course of 16 dishes!

What Cotton Mather and the other Puritans really wanted was a quiet and reflective day. They did not observe any of the special events in the traditional liturgical calendar — Sunday was the day to worship, period — but as a rule they did not object to non-Puritans celebrating Christmas by taking the day off. The problem was when they went out into the street to play noisy games or shoot off firecrackers. If you are going to observe the day, the reasoning went, observe it. Christmas should not provide an excuse for bad behavior.

But of course it does. Restad points out that from the very start, Christmas was a problem for Christians. At some point in the fourth century the Church combined celebration of Christ's birth with the Roman Saturnalia. It was a neat trick, ensnaring a pagan festival into the Christian calendar, but it introduced a new set of irritations that would only grow over time. When Gregory of Nanzianzus, who died in 389, urged the faithful to celebrate Christmas "after an heavenly and not after an earthly manner", could he have envisioned crowds of desperate shoppers streaming into the stores on Black Friday, armed with pepper spray?

One more interesting observation from Penne Restad about the Puritans and Christmas: shortly after the Massachusetts General Court outlawed the celebration in 1657, King Charles II demanded that they rescind the ruling; it was deemed an affront to royal authority. The Court complied, but barely, and over the years, New England's resistance to Christmas became more and more of a political statement against the power of the English hierarchy. In 1686, when the royal governor Edmund Andros attempted to hold a Christmas service in a Congregational meeting house, Bostonians forced him out and into the Town Hall. In 1722, the royal governor attempted to persuade Samuel Sewall to adjourn the General Court on Christmas Day, but he refused. We dissenters have come "a great way" for our liberties, he declared, and we will not allow you to tread on ours now.

Sometimes I feel the same way. I am not a great lover of Christmas — my family calls me the "Grinch", in fact — but it's the over-the-top celebrations that get me weary and grouchy. And I'd bet that in a week or so, as the television commercials have numbed our minds and the incessant Christmas muzak has drilled into our souls, a lot of us are going to feel some solidarity with old Sam Sewall. There are still powers to resist these days — not Anglican governors but every bit as overbearing. I imagine myself standing arm-in-arm with Sam when I refuse to buy a Pajama-gram for my cat. (It's true — you really can.) We've all come "a great way" for the liberty not to overdo it, and I'm not going to give that up without a fight.

-Peggy

 

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Publick Notice image courtesy of the Northern Michigan Reformation Society blog

CL Refresher Course -- genealogy

We get a lot of people researching their family histories here. During the colonial period, especially, church records were often the only records kept in a town, so baptisms, marriages, and church memberships can play a big part in figuring out where and when your ancestors lived. Because each Congregational church is responsible for its own records, we don't have all of the information about every church that has ever existed. Take a look at our list of archival finding guides to see if the one you're looking for is available.

If you're looking for American Congregational ministers or missionaries, we have a tool that should be helpful. Our necrology database contains more than 25,000 citations for obituary notices and biographical sketches spanning four centuries. (I'm currently in the process of adding entries for 17th and 18th century clergy from Emerson Davis's unpublished Biographical Sketches of the Congregational Pastors of New England.) There is a page of frequently asked questions and search tips for the database, as well as a video demonstration of how to use a citation to find the full necrology.

You may be able to find biographies or published works of more prominent people in our catalog. Ministers often published their more popular sermons, and missionaries sent home reports about their work in the field. There is also a series of "Vital Records of..." books for several cities in Massachusetts compiled from civic and church records through 1849.

 

If you can't find what you're looking for in our collections, there are a number of options to try on our Useful Links page. In particular:

For British Congregational ministers, try the Surman Index. It contains listings for primarily English and Welsh clergy from the mid-seventeenth century through 1972, and includes early Presbyterians and Unitarians.

To find burial records, search Find A Grave. It has an impressive 72 million records, many of which include photographs or maps.

 

We are always happy to offer assistance with our online resources or the physical collections in person. Call, write, or visit at your convenience.

--Robin

Welcome, Cary!

Our history-minded organization made a bit of its own history this past week, when Carolyn Hewitt came on as our new Director of Development. The board and I have spent many hours talking about plans for the future, putting together case statements, and creating a three-year business plan. We are truly ready to move the library and 14 Beacon Street into a new future and Cary will play a valuable role in helping us realize our dreams. She reminds us that she does not walk on water, but she does have wonderful skills and looks to be a great "fit" for all of us at 14 Beacon Street.

-Peggy

CL Refresher Course -- using the archive

The archive houses most of our rare and unique materials, including missionary correspondence, illuminated Bibles, maps, three-dimensional objects, photographs, lithographs, and glass-plate slides. The bulk of it, however, is comprised of record collections from Congregational churches and organizations that have closed their doors. These collections usually contain records of membership, board meeting activities, auxiliary committees, publications, and correspondence.

Because each congregation is responsible for its own record keeping, the size and details vary greatly, and not every extinct church sends their records to us. That doesn't necessarily mean that we can't help you find the information you're looking for, though. Here are a few tips to get you started.

 

"Do you have the records for XYZ Church?"

This question can be about a closed or active church. My first response will be what luck you may have had in our online catalog. All processed church collections that reside in our archive are listed there. We also have a set of pages on the website that list all of our finding guides; more recently added collections have embedded guides, while guides for older collections have been scanned to PDF (and will be converted later).

The catalog also includes material from our "local church history" section that houses both formal and informal histories as well as published material created by the church. Town histories are also a good resource. Individual ministers' sermons are in -- you guessed it -- the sermon section.

If you do not find what you are looking for on the website or within the catalog, you are welcome to call or email us. While it would be exciting to be the storehouse for all Congregational church records, our collection is limited to what is sent to us by the church, usually after it closes. If you are looking for records from an active congregation, they should still have them or at least know where they are kept.

 

"Do you have the baptismal / marriage / membership record for [a person] ?"

We most often get this question from genealogists, or from parents whose children are getting married in a Catholic church and need to provide proof of baptism. As mentioned above, we are not the repository for every Congregational church the way a diocese office is. Finding a mention of a specific church member starts by finding the records of the church they belonged to.

If you do see that we have records from the church you're looking for, the next step is to check the finding guide to determine whether it lists that kind of information. The more you know before you visit or contact us, the easier it will be to find specific lines in the church's record books.

 

"Do you have a picture of [a person or place] ?"

Our former archives assistant, Abraham, created a fantastic guide to finding items in our Image Collection, which is a great place to start. That collection is still being added to the online catalog, so if you don't find what you're looking for, please feel free to contact us for a second look.

We are also compiling a database of images depicting prominent people and places within the books in our collection. It is not available to the public, but we'll be happy to check that as well.

Internship Reflections by Steven Picazio

As I look back over the semester that I have spent as an intern at the Congregational Library, I am surprised to realize that my time with the library spanned only fourteen weeks. Over the course of that time, I have gained far more knowledge about librarianship and Congregationalism than I could have imagined when I started in late August. When I came to the library, I hoped of gaining some practical experience as a cataloger. Now, I'm leaving, not only with that, but also with a much deeper appreciation for the wide range of work and knowledge that it takes to run a library.

During the course of my internship, I dedicated much of my time to creating and editing bibliographic records for the online catalog. Many of the records I created were for books on the subjects of church art and architecture and for pamphlets on the Catholic Church. The work of producing these records challenged my grasp of cataloging as the library's collection contains so many unexpected surprises. I found myself cataloging resources as diverse as a 17th century tract from London that detailed the objections of early Congregationalists against Roman Catholicism and Anglicanism, to a 20th century book that exhaustively detailed the range of altar designs found in English churches and cathedrals. As someone with a fascination with cataloging work, solving the problem of creating the appropriate records for such varied resources proved extremely rewarding. Each day of the internship, I would find myself learning how to solve different cataloging conundrums. In addition to that, being exposed to these resources afforded me the chance to learn about subjects, like church architecture, of which I had little knowledge. As a result, I came to look forward to encountering each new resource and deepening my scope of knowledge of the art and history of Congregationalism.

In addition to cataloging work, I was also afforded the opportunity to work at the reference desk in the reading room. To my surprise, I found working with patrons and researchers to be a more fulfilling experience than I had initially anticipated. Assisting in the research of the library's visitors not only furthered my knowledge of the library's unique resources, but also gave me a new appreciation for reference librarianship. While, prior to this internship, I had dedicated much of my academic attention to cataloging, I had let my focus on the whole range of librarianship to lapse. Working at the reference desk reawakened my zeal for all types of library work and reminded me why I was attracted to the profession initially.

As the internship comes to a close, I look forward to bringing along the many lessons that I learned at the Congregational Library to wherever the next step my career in the LIS field takes me to. I would like to thank the entire staff of the library, who were always friendly, helpful, and welcoming. I would also like to extend my special thanks to Rachel Moore, who guided me through my work and patiently answered the many cataloging questions that I brought to her. If I continue as a cataloger, I hope that I will be able to emulate her attention to detail and depth of cataloging knowledge in my own career.

 

-Steven Picazio, Simmons GSLIS Librarianship Intern

Scheduling notice -- Reading room closed on Monday

Our reading room will be closed to the public this coming Monday, December 5th, for our quarterly board meeting.

Staff will be on hand to answer questions by phone or email, and all of our online resources will be available as usual. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

Old South intern wrap-up

Entering the plastic room for the first time and seeing that all the boxes on the 11 shelving units were specifically for this archiving project initially induced shortness of breath, a racing heart beat and a numbness of the left arm. After taking a few ohm like breaths, and figuring the numbness was from lugging a heavy bag for 10 blocks from Fenway and carrying a large iced tea, I realized that a heart attack was not in the immediate future... just an overwhelming archiving project. Thankfully I was not alone and had someone else to share my confusion with.

Sari and I started off the first week by jumping into the project and seeing what types of documents were being stored, how things were stored and what the heck the difference was from a star, a circle, an X and all the colored post-its on the boxes. Figuring that they really didn't make much of a difference and that the spreadsheet was something that you needed a cereal box decoder ring to read, we decided to start from scratch.

Going box to box, and writing in our own chicken scratch we detailed where things were, in what state the different boxes were in, and pretty much how much trouble (work) we had signed up for. Surprisingly, starting over calmed our nerves and allowed us to focus not on the plastic room as a whole, but on each shelving unit, then each shelf, and each box. Concentrating our efforts from trying to breathe and not freak out to processing (and re-processing) the materials box by box into folder by folder.

As I sit down in the plastic room and write this now, Sari and I can confidently say that over the course of this semester we have taken the collection from being about 50% processed and organized to a solid 75 to 80% fully processed, foldered, labeled, condensed and organized into appropriate boxes. Our work could also be measured by the staggering amount of trash that was produced (old acidic folders and files), and the six boxes of acid-free folders that we used. In addition we have gotten rid of the no longer color-coding and symbol organization scheme, and simplified the spreadsheet that is working as a box container list. Finally, the spreadsheet has been put into both excel format and a format for Google Docs to allow multiple people to work on it at the same time.

As of right now there is still work to be done for the next round of interns, but with clear documentation and instructions on where and how to start it will hopefully not be as overwhelming of an experience for them. There are two and a half shelving units left to be processed, and the final arrangement and finding aid to be written. While this probably will not be completed with one more round of interns, most likely the processing will be. And here's some luck to the people for next semester.

 

-Christopher Stowell