A Guide to Boston's Religiously Significant Sites

Paul Harvey

Wish I had seen this before, rather than after, the AHA, but going to post because it might help fill out some of your itineraries (including my own) on trips to Boston:

Meaghan Dwyer-Ryan, A Guide to Boston's Religiously Significant Sites, from the published supplement to the just-concluded AHA meeting in Boston. The author includes short descriptions and histories not only of the usual suspects (Old North Church, etc.), but also to major Catholic and Jewish congregational destinations. Put this one in your bookmarks.

Here's one I didn't know about, just for a little taste:

German and Polish immigrants established Congregation Ohabei Shalom, Boston’s first Jewish congregation, in 1842 in the South End, and the first Jewish cemetery in East Boston in 1849. In 1852, the congregation constructed a synagogue on Warren Street, modeled after Newport’s Touro Synagogue. Increasing membership prompted further moves: in 1863, to the Warrenton Street Universalist Church (now the Charles Playhouse) and in 1886, to the Union Park Street Church (now a Greek Orthodox Church) in the South End. In 1928, the congregation built its current temple center on Beacon Street in Brookline (1187 Beacon St., 617-277-6610).

National Museum of American Jewish History

Randall Stephens

David O'Reilly has an interesting piece on the opening exhibit at the National Museum of American Jewish History: "Chronicling Lives More than Religion," Philadelphia Inquirer, November 14, 2010. (The new museum is open to the public on Nov 28.) O'Reilly interviews deputy curator Josh Perelman and describes some of the highlights ranging from the 17th to the 20th century.

. . . After entering on Market Street, visitors are invited to start their tour on the fourth floor, in the year 1654, and descend through time, floor by floor, to the present, inspecting more than a thousand artifacts along the way.

A great majority of the items are secular - immigration documents from Ellis Island, a sewing machine, the upright piano at which the Russian-born, agnostic, but ethnically Jewish Berlin penned such tunes as "White Christmas," "Easter Parade," and "God Bless America."

But here, too, are examples of the Torah scrolls, bibles, prayer books, menus, candlesticks, kiddush cups, bat mitzvah dresses, and yarmulkes that have helped sustain Judaism in America for three and a half centuries.

"I think we did a pretty good job," said Perelman.

The tour begins with artifacts of Jewish life in the colonies. Here, behind glass, is a 1737 Torah from Savannah, Georgia; a plain, bronze menorah, or liturgical candelabrum; a circumcision kit; the wooden top of a Torah ark from Lancaster County; the bible of the Gomez family - New York mill owners who had fled the Spanish Inquisition; and the handwritten "subscription list" of donors who, in 1728, created America's first synagogue, Shearith Israel, in New York City.>>>

Archive Envy Redux

Paul Harvey

Over at Religion in the American West, James Bennett writes of archive envy as he bides his summer time stay-at-home-dad-ing and looks forward to future archival research ventures in his new field of religion in the West. Bennett's memories and query recall a thread here which went several rounds last year, and which we'll invite further reflections from anyone interested: Know Your Archives, the last entry of which was quite recently, Know Your [Digital] Archives.

Bennett's post tells of past experiences with at Josephite Fathers archive in Maryland, where he researched for his book Religion and the Rise of Jim Crow in New Orleans, and concludes with this query:

For me, one of the most exciting parts of embarking on a new project is anticipating the new places I’ll do my research. What treasure troves of religion in the American West have you come across?

He invites posts there on experiences researching in archives on Religion in the West, especially the scruffier or off-the-beaten-path places where much of our favorite material and many of our most memorable experiences may have been found. You research road warriors, feel free to add to our Know Your Archives series with a post here or at Religion in the American West.

Know Your [Digital] Archives

Michael J. Altman

I wrote a blog post for the Hacking the Academy project last week where I argued that digital collections could change the way we think about graduate seminars because they allow for easier original research without having to leave campus. A while back Michael Pasquier wrote a great post on digital humanities and religious history.  Building on his list of sources I wanted to point out two more great online archives I've used in the past year to write seminar papers that will eventually make their way (in some form) into my dissertation.

First, there is the pair of Making of America collections--one at Cornell and one at the University of Michigan.  As the websites describe them, they are:

Making of America (MOA) is a digital library of primary sources in American social history primarily from the antebellum period through reconstruction. The collection is particularly strong in the subject areas of education, psychology, American history, sociology, religion, and science and technology.

 The Cornell collection contains 267monographs and over 100,000 journal articles while the Michigan collection contains about 10,000 books.

The second collection is, I believe, a little less well known.  The University of Pittsburgh has a digital collection of 19th Century Schoolbooks that is fascinating to browse through.  It is a smaller collection, only 140 volumes, but there is some great stuff in there for folks interested in American civil religion throughout the century.

Both of these collections have titles and journals that deal with missions, religious education and other things of obvious interest to historians of religion.  However, the full-text searchability of these collections makes them even more useful.  In my own research I've turned up really interesting references to South Asian religions in places I would have never found in a traditional brick and mortar archive.  I also think these sorts of collections have a lot of potential in the classroom--both for teaching and as resources for original student research.  It's one thing to lecture on the tensions between North and South in the 1850s, but reading a southern schoolbook versus a northern schoolbook offers a very different feel for those tensions.

If anyone knows of other good digital collections for religious history let us know.

"Thieves break through and steal" at the Methodist Archives

Paul may indeed be right that "Methodists just aren't that cool," but historical documents stolen from their archives still apparently fetch a hefty sum on the black market. Just ask William John Scott, Drew University freshman and (former) employee at the school's United Methodist Archives and History Center, who was arrested last week on charges of stealing several valuable documents from the archives (including 21 of the 23 Wesley letters the school owns, and "roughly 11 other important and historical documents, ... including letters from five United States presidents"). Scott is currently being held on $50,000 bond and could face up to 10 years in prison.

From the report in the New York Times:

The university became suspicious, according to an account provided by prosecutors, after an antiques dealer in England alerted officials in its library that he had been approached by someone offering to sell him original letters from the Wesleys. Ten of the letters arrived on March 3, via FedEx, according to the complaint, with two suffering some damage in transit.

Prosecutors said the unprofessional way the valuable documents were shipped did not sit well with the dealer, who then consulted Drew officials, given their expertise and collection of Wesleyana.

After a quick search of its archives, the university estimated that 21 to 23 of its Wesley letters appeared to be missing and contacted the F.B.I. The missing lot included a valuable letter, worth more than $5,000, from John Wesley to a friend and supporter, George Merryweather, dated Dec. 20, 1766. ...

University officials had not been aware that the presidential letters were missing until the search of the dorm room. But they were optimistic on Monday that they would ultimately recover any lost items. “For Methodists, these are treasures and so we’re hoping to get them back,” said Christopher Anderson, the Methodist librarian at Drew.

Know Your Archives, Part VIII: American Catholic Archives Tip Sheet

BY MICHAEL PASQUIER

As all red-blooded Protestants of the 19th century loved a good convent captivity narrative, so too do all blue-blooded historians of the 21st century love a good archival horror story. Sadly, I have no such tale to add to the genre. I spent the better part of six years in and out of archives specializing in the history of American Catholicism. I concentrated my attention on Catholics in the antebellum United States. And I came away with the impression that most archivists of Catholic institutions hardly resemble the image of the gruff guardian of the church’s secrets whose sole purpose in life is to foil the research agenda of even the most alter-boyish of academics. Perhaps this has to do with the apparent harmlessness of my research topic—French émigré priests in the trans-Appalachian West. Or perhaps it’s to do with the fact that, as someone once told me, when it comes to gaining access to the personal papers of Catholic priests, the deader the better.

At any rate, here are a few archives that may help someone out there interested in 19th-century American Catholicism:

Thanks to the collecting acumen of 19th-century librarian and historian James Edwards, the University of Notre Dame Archives (UNDA) has become a sort of clearinghouse for all-things-Catholic in the United States. UNDA’s commitment to the accumulation and dissemination of Catholic Americana made this former graduate student’s life a whole lot easier. One week I could concentrate on the Diocese of Bardstown, Kentucky, collections, and the next I could shift gears to the Archdiocese of New Orleans, finding time in-between to consult microfilm versions of archives previously accessible only in France and Italy. Side note: don’t remind the archivists and priest-historians of Louisville and New Orleans of your love for UNDA. A Louisville priest once told me about his plan to sue UNDA for “stealing” documents related to Kentucky Catholicism; fortunately, cooler heads have prevailed. And if you find yourself in the Archives of the Archdiocese of New Orleans, you’ll notice that most 19th-century manuscripts are photocopied; that’s because an archbishop in the 1890s gave them to Notre Dame's Edwards for safekeeping. Let’s just say the New Orleans folks don’t brag about this fact.

Before you plan your trip to UNDA, look into applying for a Research Travel Grant from Notre Dame’s Cushwa Center for the Study of American Catholicism. You will not find an institution more supportive of American Catholic studies in the United States. I personally owe an incredible debt of gratitude to Timothy Matovina and Kathleen Sprows Cummings of the Cushwa Center for their kindness, generosity, and criticism. They are true ambassadors of the field.

If 20th-century American Catholicism is your thing, then the American Catholic Research Center and University Archives at Catholic University of America is a fine place to start. I consulted the papers of Peter Guilday and John Tracy Ellis (arguably the founding [ordained] fathers of American Catholic history) during my visit a few years ago. Manuscripts related to the Second Vatican Council are especially relevant to recent trends in the field of American Catholic studies. And CUA’s archivists have started to digitize some of their collections, including documents on the burning of the Ursuline Convent of Charlestown, Massachusetts, and the First Vatican Council (the 19th century, it should be said, is also well represented in CUA’s holdings). The archives also offer the Dorothy Mohler Research Grant to folks on an annual basis. Again, an all-around outstanding place to conduct research.

When it comes to regional archives (as opposed to the more national-oriented repositories at UND and CUA), I’d single out the Associated Archives of St. Mary’s Seminary and University in Baltimore, Maryland. Located on the campus of, you guessed it, St. Mary’s, the Associated Archives include the collections of the Archdiocese of Baltimore, St. Mary’s Seminary and University, and the Sulpicians of the United States, effectively offering historians of the early American Catholic Church with no better place to get one’s sea legs. The facilities were recently renovated and the archivists are incredibly generous with their expertise as both librarians and historians.

Lastly, a word of caution to those interested in American Catholic studies of the 19th and 20th centuries. Historians of American Catholicism (myself included) are in the habit of focusing most (if not all) of their attention on Catholic-specific archives like UND, CUA, and St. Mary’s. There are very good reasons for this pattern, not the least of which is the practical appeal of one-stop-shopping. But my recent work in earlier periods of colonial American history—periods covered less thoroughly in the collections of American Catholic repositories—has made me realize just how much I may have missed in my 19th-century studies. Walking into a place like UNDA can be exhilarating—where to begin? when will it end? so much!—but it can also be suffocating.

Photo #1: Knute Rockne, University of Notre Dame
Photo #2: United Mine Workers of America, Catholic University of America
Photo #3: Altar Boy Procession, St. Mary's Seminary and University

Know Your Archives, Part VI: Learn the Dress Code

By Seth Dowland

I spent the month of May completing an abbreviated version of Matt’s fundamentalist/evangelical archive tour, visiting the Fundamentalism File at Bob Jones and the Billy Graham Center at Wheaton. I’ll second the multiple commendations of Patrick Robbins and the staff at BJU – coffee in the morning and M&Ms in the afternoon make a day in the archives much more pleasant. I did make a fundamentalist faux pas one morning when I showed up to the BJU track in a sleeveless running shirt – a prominently posted dress code emphasized “NO TANK TOPS.” Fortunately I had a T-shirt stowed in the car and made a quick change before I scandalized any Bob Jones coeds. Other than that, I had a great week in Greenville, mining the Fundamentalism File’s extensive collections and paging through a number of evangelical and fundamentalist periodicals.

The Billy Graham Center is, as Matt noted, unmatched among evangelicalism archives. Wayne Weber and Bob Shuster know the collection inside and out, and they are eager to help. Like BJU, The Graham Center archives offers free, unlimited scanning – a boon for any researcher. I enjoyed wandering through downtown Wheaton when the archives closed, as well; I catalogued my notes and scans at a lovely coffeeshop (where I overheard earnest undergrads debating the Sotomayor nomination) before walking over to a bar (downtown Wheaton’s one and only!) to watch the NBA playoffs.

And, to answer Randall's query, I have done research in the archives at Liberty University. My first visit was nine years ago, when I was working on an undergraduate thesis about Jerry Falwell. Beginning my trend of violating fundamentalist college dress codes, I showed up in khakis and a polo shirt at a time when ties were still required for male students. (Being an undergraduate myself, I didn’t have a tie in my car. So I spent the day absorbing cold stares from Liberty students disdainful of my rebellious spirit.) The “archives” at that time consisted of a bunch of boxes in a dusty room, almost completely uncatalogued. The librarian turned me loose and told me to photocopy whatever I wanted (for free!). I came across a trove of Falwell sermons from the 1960s (including the oft-cited “Ministers and Marches” sermon in which Falwell excoriated civil rights protesters). Inexperienced and unprepared, I made only a handful of copies and came away with a scant set of notes. When I went back to Liberty as a graduate student six years later, I showed up in a tie, only to learn that Liberty had eliminated the tie requirement. Oh well -- better to be overdressed. A newly-hired archivist was processing the old boxes, and the catalog was incomplete. But I could only look at items in the catalog, which didn't include many of the documents I ran across on my first trip. I knew what I was looking for but couldn’t find it – a supremely frustrating experience. I assume Liberty has processed many more archival boxes in the intervening three years. But for now, I’m left with sketchy notes and a sense of regret. I wish someone had told me, forcefully, to photocopy as much as I could! Still, the experience of discovery as I waded through the Liberty archives nine years ago convinced me to become a religious historian, and I’ve been thankful for that inspiration ever since.

Know Your Archives, Part V: Methodist Heaven

Continuing our series on our archival experiences, I'm pleased to guest post the following from Christopher Jones, who blogs at Juvenile Instructor and is a graduate student at William and Mary. I, too, researched at the United Methodist Archives, for 2 weeks in 1999; they arranged some very nice housing there in a nearby apartment building, and Drew is close enough to New York City for some fun side trips as well!

By Christopher Jones

In the summer of 2008, I spent a week at the United Methodist Archives and History Center, located on the idyllic campus of Drew University in Madison, New Jersey. Perhaps providentially for a poor graduate student researching Methodism, the archives are located just down the road from my in-laws in Summit, NJ, which saved me the cost of having to find a place to stay, but I’ve heard from others that the Xavier Center invites individuals doing research at Drew to stay there for relatively cheap (about $40/night). I ate each day at the student center at Drew, which had a pretty good selection of decent (but not great) food for a reasonable price (John Turner’s not lying about the quality of the lunch at the LDS cafeteria).

The reading room is small, but quiet, and the collections at the UMAHC are rich. The Francis Asbury collection and Garrettson family collection (including Catherine Garrettson’s fascinating dream journal), along with a host of diaries penned by itinerant preachers in antebellum America received most of my attention, but there is a large collection of documents dealing with 20^th century themes and issues that are waiting to be mined by interested researchers (and which were utilized by Morris Davis for his important book on The Methodist Unification). They have an especially rich collection of source material (both personal papers and institutional records) dealing with missionary efforts in India and China during the early 1900s, for those interested in international issues. And what they don’t have in document form, they have on microfilm. Plus, they had a mourner’s bench from an early 19^th century camp meeting on display in the atrium outside the reading room, which for a religious history geek like myself, was an added bonus.

What made the trip to NJ especially worthwhile and valuable, though, was the staff. Chris Anderson leads a team of Methodist librarians that went above and beyond in ensuring my short stay was productive. In addition to having requested materials on hand awaiting my arrival each morning, the staff also suggested other sources that might be helpful to my research on Methodism and Mormonism (and they were right). When I left, Chris Anderson offered to send photocopies of any sources I may have forgotten to check out while there (an offer I luckily didn’t have to take him up on). For a young student making his first research trip outside of his local archives, it was a wonderful experience.

How I Spent My Summer Vacation--Know Your Archives, Part IV

BY MATT SUTTON

Indeed, I have many thoughts on archives I visited recently (while my wife and kids lounged on the California beach). Unlike those of you who experienced the beauties of an un-caffeinated Provo or the modernist wealth and splendor of the bean-town Congregationalists, I went on a fundamentalist/ evangelical greatest hits tour. And I only visit archives made of brick, as the images below illustrate.

University of Washington (I know, not exactly a bastion of fundy/evangelical truthiness): nice research room; great archivists (thank you tax-payers); and student assistants who make things interesting by not always putting the correct collection/box/folder numbers on your copies.

Moody Bible Institute: limited collections and multiple perimeters of security to navigate ninja-style before you find the archives room.

Biola University: No research room, but a friendly archivist who does her best to accommodate researchers while simultaneously attending to one of her hundreds of other library assignments.

Gordon-Conwell: it ain’t Boston, but the Puritans still live nearby. One of the best collections of early-to-mid twentieth century Christian magazines anywhere. You can stay on campus on the cheap if you want to re-live your college glory days of shared bathrooms, no TV, and sleeping on a cot.

Bob Jones University: despite my dress shirts, khakis, and short hair, everyone, and I mean everyone, knew that I was an outsider on the compound. BJU security knows when you come, when you go, and what you do. Greenville must be a more dangerous place than I realized because the campus is entirely surrounded by a gate, much of the faculty live on campus, and there are K-12^th classes on campus so that faculty and their kids never have to leave. Eating is done communally in the cafeteria--the library shuts down from 5-6 so everyone can eat together. The archivist at BJU is incredibly accommodating and will go to great lengths to help researchers. He also lets you eat donuts and drink coffee (in my case Pepsi) in the archives room--so take that Turner.

American Baptist Archives (Atlanta): $10 a day to do research; $.50/copy; and two and a half months later, I am still waiting for my copies to arrive. Enuf said.

Fuller Seminary: Beautiful research room with no windows or doors. O.K., I guess there was one door. I got in somehow. Staring down at you is a giant portrait of the late Wilbur Smith (of “The Atomic Bomb and the Word of God” fame.) It is a little eerie to read his papers while he watches.

Wheaton/Billy Graham Center Archives: still the best, most comfortable place to work on evangelicalism. Professional, smart archivists, plenty of room to work, friendly policies, and they even have trains going by outside all day, which make for a nice distraction perfectly suited for a three-year-old or the father of a three-year-old. And that is how I spent my summer vacation.

Know Your Archives, Part III -- A Confused Geek's Tour through some Southern Religious Archives

Paul Harvey

John Turner and Randall Stephens' last two posts, concerning the new Church History Library in Salt Lake and the beautiful Congregational Library in Boston, made me think that we should solicit more contributions about our experiences researching (sorry for you general readers and non-historians out there -- occasionally we like to geek out on the blog).

A number of other blogs have "how to" and advice lists for how to organize your research trip, what to bring, etc., so we won't duplicate that here. Instead, maybe we can follow our last two know your archives posts with some more that talk about other libraries, archives, museums, or other places where you've had memorable research experiences related in any way to American religious history. So if you're interested in sending me a contribution, please feel free; I'd be especially interested to hear from anyone who's been to some off-the-beaten-tracks archives that you want to tell us about. Sure, I've loved researching at the Newberry in Chicago, at the Harvard Library, at the Schomburg Center in New York, at the Denver Public Library, and at the peerless Southern Historical Collection in Chapel Hill -- all beautiful places, both aesthetically and in terms of priceless and massive collections. But it's the archives where you hit the jackpot when you least expected it that most attract my geek love.

Matt Sutton researched at Bob Jones U., so I'm expecting a funny contribution from you any time now, Sutton. And he also of course researched the life of Aimee Semple McPherson -- enough said.

I spent the better part of one year (1988) following the archive trail around the country for my first book, but most of it was spent at a really great place that ought to get more use by scholars, the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives (SBHLA) in Nashville. It's not set in a grand old building like the Congregationalist Archives, and no I'm not going to do any RiAH TV for this particular post like Randall did for his. But the SBHLA is really a treasure trove for anyone doing anything that relates, directly or indirectly, to Baptists. Besides wonderful archival resources, they've also microfilmed seemingly everything from every other repository that has Baptist material. I found there an incredible collection of local black Baptist church, association, and convention minutes (some held in hard copy at the American Baptist archives in Rochester, and some just collected from God knows where), as well as black Baptist publications that you just can't find anywhere. One of my former students (Sue Marasco, who has blogged here before), combed through correspondence there concerning Nannie Burroughs, the black Baptist woman's leader and founder of the National Training School for Women and Girls. We know about her life until 1920 from Evelyn Higginbotham's Righteous Discontent, but not much about her afterwards -- the material is there, a good deal of it at the SBHLA.

Also, recently on our blog and elsewhere we've had considerable discussions of John Stauffer and Sally Jenkins, The State of Jones, about Newton Knight and Unionism in Mississippi during the Civil War. Knight may have been a Primitive Baptist, and his parents probably were before the war. We were discussing what his Primitive Baptism would have had to do (if anything) with his dissent from Confederate and Redemptionist views. Further work through the Primitive Baptist materials there (I did a little bit of that, but not all that much) would help further answer some of those questions. The SBHLA has a grant program to help fund research there.

More recently, about ten years ago I think, I spent a little bit of time at a very different kind of place, the small library at the headquarters of the International Pentecostal Holiness Church in Oklahoma City. In the basement of their headquarters was a small and, I admit, most unpromising looking library. If the SBHLA had the look of a really well-run, professional archive, with outstanding material and a full lineup of personnel, the IPHC archive was in one small room presided over by

Pentecostal historian Harold Hunter. After a short conversation with Harold, he began pulling out some of their materials (including the great early Pentecostal paper Live Coals of Fire, whose articles carried all sorts of awesome fire and dynamite metaphors for explaining the work of the Holy Spirit), and I had a feeling that I'd hit the jackpot. While not voluminous, the materials were the one-of-a-kind stuff that any geek historian dreams about.

Not all experiences are so wonderful, of course. At the Virginia Baptist Library at the University of Richmond (back in 1988 again), I was scared off from some of their rich material from an archivist who rather haughtily told me that my topic had been done before, and he wasn't quite sure what I was doing there. As a novice researcher, not actually sure what I was looking for other than just to snoop around and read, I just kind of slinked off and wondered if I should find another line of work. Probably I just misunderstood the archivist and was too inarticulate to explain what I was doing. Too bad, because that place has a peerless collection of early (especially eighteenth century) material; just ask Rhys Isaac.

But leaving there led me to stumble into the Foreign Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. There was no "archive" there at all in 1988, just a room with a bunch of busy people and a microfiche machine in the middle. The librarian there, Edie Jeter, got me set up reading microfiche of missionary letters from the 19th century -- not what I was in Richmond to work on, but I am naturally nosy and like to read other people's letters (a pre-requisite of being a historian, I think), so there you go. They were hard to read on those old microfiche, and not made easier by the fact that it was a bustling office in which this ill-fed, ill-housed, and ill-clothed researcher happened to be sitting in the middle (fortunately this was in the South, where people tend to be polite even to confused geeks, and I won't even go into what I probably smelled like). From the couple of days I spent there I spun out an entire book idea based on these letters, which were incredible and very personal. I later moved on to other projects and never got around to pursuing this idea, but in the meantime I believe this material has moved to the SBHLA, where it awaits its historian.

There's plenty of good stuff out there for you geeks, so get busy. Write me with your archival finds and experiences and I'll post them here.

Know Your Archives: The Congregational Library

Randall Stephens

[Cross posted at the Historical Society blog.]

Henry Ward Beecher, America’s most well-known 19th-century preacher, was into books and libraries. “A library is not a luxury but one of the necessities of life,” he famously remarked. Fortunately for historians and all those interested in America’s past, Beecher’s Congregational denomination was also into books and libraries.

Last week I paid a visit to the impressive Congregational Library, located right next to the State House

on Beacon Hill in Boston. The Library has an extraordinary collection of historic documents, books, maps, and a range of material related to the congregational church, world cultures, and America. Established in 1853, with a modest 56 books, the Library now holds 225,000 items that chronicle the history of one of America’s oldest denominations.

The Library ranks with some of the more beautiful archives in the states. Its interior reminds me of a miniature version of the grand Jefferson reading room at the Library of Congress, with arched ceilings, paintings, and historic furnishings.

I spoke to Peggy Bendroth, executive director of the Library, about the work being done with the collection, the kinds of material housed there, and the role of the Library. (Bendroth’s publications on evangelicalism and her intimate knowledge of American Protestantism benefits those researchers who work at the Library.) I post here the video I made of my visit. Call it “Religion in American History Television.” (Real original title, I know.)

The Congregational Library has much to recommend it. I’ve been to plenty of cramped, denominational archives nestled in southern and midwestern industrial sections of suburbs. Most have hung ceilings, florescent lights, and church-like, indoor/outdoor carpet. So what, I’ve figured. I’m here to do research, not meditate on interior design. Yet, a nicely lit, pleasant environment does add something to the experience. (It’s the Boston Public Library appeal.)

Beyond that, there’s the issue of scope/time frame. The Congregational Library spans the ages as few other denominational archives or research libraries do. And since it’s been around for eons, it’s collected an avalanche of material. It all makes for a great experience for the casual visitor or the dedicated researcher.

Temples, Archives, and Apostates

John G. Turner

I've been meaning to blog about our nearly three months in Provo, Utah, and environs. For anyone writing Mormon History, a trip to the former Deseret means entering archival heaven (well, at least the Terrestrial portion). It's also both somewhat bizarre and exhilarating to emerge from academic isolation and suddenly meet scores of people who share research interests.

Hopefully without too much self-indulgence, here are several of my not-too-coherent summertime thoughts on Mormonism and Mormon History:

▪ Temples are important. That sounds obvious, but in general, historians of Mormonism (like historians of American religion more broadly) still do not pay nearly enough attention to religious practice (as opposed to the politics, economics, and theological / ecclesial development of the church). Granted, the sacred nature of Mormon temple ritual poses particular challenges. But it occurred to me that one gets a very limited sense of Mormon spirituality from, say, visiting sacrament meetings or watching church conferences. Serendipitously, the recently dedicated Oquirrh Mountain Temple had its months-long open house during our summer stay. We accompanied a Mormon friend and his family through the open house, saw the baptismal font, the changing rooms, the sealing room, and the endowment room. The contrast (paraphrasing another Utah friend) between the remarkably low-church sacrament meeting and the liturgical nature of the temple is striking. That contrast has certainly existed since the Nauvoo period of the church. Visiting the temple rammed home the lesson that there is an entire side of Mormon spirituality and practice that I'll never understand, but it's nevertheless good to keep in mind that it's there. If you teach or study American religion and there's ever a temple open house in your vicinity, don't miss it.

▪ The new Church History Library is a much-improved facility for research. The edifice itself testifies to the significance of the church's history for the Latter-day Saint faith. Can you imagine any other religious group in the United States unveiling a new library / archive like this in the midst of an economic downturn? You can find a thorough discussion of its virtues and shortcomings here. Biggest improvements: more light (much easier to stay awake), better technology, and evening / weekend hours. On the downside, you now have to walk across the street to obtain the cheap and tax-free LDS cafeteria lunch, but it's still worth it. The nearest coffee I could find was in a basement McDonald's just south of Temple Square. I tried to wean myself because of enforced abstinence while at BYU but gave up. The flesh is weak.

▪ We were based in Provo, the only place I've lived where the grocery featured Emergency Food Preparedness sales (my wife is taking her cues from the Saints and is stocking up in the midst of hurricane season on the Gulf Coast) and storytime for children. Strangely, though, we attended a Pioneer Day event at Pioneer Park in Provo and never heard or saw anything pertaining to Mormonism. Those weren't just any old pioneers, you know. Maybe I missed something.

▪ In terms of Mormon History publications, you can't blink without missing significant books. After a near-decade book-ended by two major books on the Mountain Meadows Massacre and centered around Richard Bushman's magisterial biography of Joseph Smith, I'm trying to figure out what's coming next. This year appears to be the year of apostasy (historiographically), with books on the subject by Polly Aird and Edward Leo Lyman. I haven't read either book yet, but I'm curious to learn more about why and how people left the church. To return to the first point above, I do think we'll see more books that foreground Mormon religious practice. For an example of innovative and diligent research on the subject, see the article on Mormon ritual healing by Jonathan Stapley and Kristine Wright in the current Journal of Mormon History (link to Table of Contents only).

Coming Home to Outsider Religious Art

Paul Harvey

Preparing my Lamar Lectures has brought me back to a little project I was involved with a few years ago, mainly just to write a short introduction for one chapter in Coming Home: Self-Taught Artists, the Bible, and the American South. I've been going through this work again looking for images to go along with one of the lectures, "Jesus of the South." Of course there are many; one of my favorites, "There is Only One King," is to the right. These artists are eccentrics and visionaries; one of them, Anderson Johnson (1907-1998), now has his own gallery of work he did while running a Faith Mission Church in Newport News, Virginia, over several decades.

Some well-known names, especially Howard Finster, are in this work. Many others you will not have heard of. The book is a wonderful catalog of the exhibition that traveled the country a few years back, reviewed here in the New York Times when it appeared at the Museum of Biblical Art (the article comes with a very nice slide show of some of the works, too).

Scholars such as Colleen McDannell, among others, have led the way in showing how religious historians may incorporate the visual into their work. I'm but a novice at this, but plan to try my hand a bit at it in these lectures. We'll see how it goes. David Morgan's Protestants and Pictures is a classic in analyzing how an allegedly "pure" church free of Romish superstititions of images and icons in fact created an entire world of their own imagery. And, just as anyone can read the Bible, the (mostly) Protestants in this collection freely interpreted biblical passages through their wildly diverse and often apocalyptic imagery. Moreover, the black artists exhibited here weren't waiting around for the advent of "black theology" to experiment with images of Jesuses of color. Black crucified Christs appear frequently in the exhibition and range through the course of the twentieth century.

Here's a description of Coming Home.

In the works of many famous self-taught artists, such as Howard Finster and Sister Gertrude Morgan, Biblical themes and imagery abound. How has the Bible inspired these southern creators?

Examining 125 works of art by seventy contemporary folk artists, Coming Home! Self-Taught Artists, the Bible, and the American South accompanies a traveling exhibition organized by the Art Museum of the University of Memphis. The exhibition features painters and sculptors of wide acclaim, including Finster, Sister Morgan, William Edmondson, Clementine Hunter, Joe Minter, Elijah Pierce, Robert Roberg, William Thomas Thompson, and Myrtice West.

In the South, Evangelical Christianity is predominant. Essays in this catalog explore this particular religious influence on the work of southern self-taught artists. The artwork is considered within the context of contemporary American art and history, literature, and music.

Also included are brief essays on thirty-two of the artists along with biographical sketches of each, identifying denominational ties and providing relevant religious information.

Coming Home! offers new ways of understanding the rich meaning, theology, and history of this art and its stylistic approaches and various purposes. Essayists also forward a fresh appreciation of the cultural influence of Evangelical Christianity. They include Carol Crown, Erika Lee Doss, Hal Fulmer, Norman Girardot, Paul Harvey, Babatunde Lawal, Leslie Luebbers, Cheryl Rivers, and Charles Reagan Wilson.

New Orleans Voodoo Museum in NY Times, and in Scholarly Perspective

Paul Harvey

Edward Rothstein reviews the New Orleans Voodoo Museum today in the NY Times, and makes a brief reference to Carolyn Morrow Long's biography of Marie Laveau (one of several competing biographies of this part historical/part mythical figure). Rothstein writes of the tiny museum:

It’s voodoo that these gravesite relics reflect. They are called gris-gris: items associated with seekers who wish to change something about their lives or the lives of others. My guide, Jerry Gandolfo, runs the New Orleans Historic Voodoo Museum in the nearby French Quarter. (His brother began it in 1972.) It is less a museum than two rooms, one consisting mainly of gris-gris along with altars used by contemporary practitioners. It is like an old curiosity shop, dusty, not terribly well cared for, almost startlingly haphazard.

The museum really needs the kind of curatorial intelligence that only emerges when Mr. Gandolfo, smartly stocked with information, associations and anecdotes, begins to speak. But the museum still gets something across about the powers of spirits (“vodu” in the Fon religion of West Africa) and their ability to make use of the lowliest of objects. No gilded artifacts or high-falutin’ pomp here: this is a folk religion in which power seems to flow from the trivial, or the horrifying.

A cool little slide show is here.

Time for me to pay another visit when the Southern Historical Association meets in New Orleans, 2nd weekend in October this year.

Here' the program, and apropos of the topic at hand, I'll paste in here a session on the scholarly study of this subject, scheduled in the Sunday morning slot when many participants will have left perhaps, but surely of interest to many. It features Carolyn Long and the younger scholar Jeffrey Anderson, author of a recent and very helpful study Conjure in African American Society, which I reviewed in the American Historical Review (subscription or J-STOR access required). My review, in brief summary:

Jeffrey E. Anderson provides a solid summation and overview of magical and religio-pharmacological traditions—captured in the single multivalent word "conjure"—in African American history. Conjure, he writes, was a "form of utilitarian, pragmatic spirituality" (p. 79), a composite of beliefs, suspicions, and actions with roots in African, Native American, and Western European cultures. Anderson's coverage of the African roots and European parallels to African American conjure are familiar from other recent works in the field, most notably Yvonne Chireau's Black Magic: Religion and the African American Conjuring Tradition (2003). By contrast, his stress on Native American influences—including animals from the Underworld and the use of "diviners chiefly concerned ... with foretelling the course of individual lives, finding lost or stolen articles, and most important, diagnosing illness" (p. 66)—is a fresh analysis. As well, Anderson's emphasis of Afro-Latin and Afro-Caribbean influences on the later evolution of conjuring traditions in the United States distinguishes this work.

Here's the session -- ya'll come. And for god's sake, join the SHA already.

Sunday, October 12: 9:00-11:00 A.M. (Sheraton New Orleans)

56. BEYOND THE VOODOO DOLL

PRESIDING: Charles Joyner, Coastal Carolina University

The Perils of Hoodoo: Scholarly Pitfalls in the Study of African American Supernaturalism
Jeffrey E. Anderson, University of Louisiana, Monroe

Superstition and Supernaturalism in White and Black Southern Folk Culture
Philip Gibbs, Middle Georgia College

Supernaturalism in the Body: Black Pentecostalism in the U.S.
Clarence Hardy, Dartmouth College

The Commercialization of Voodoo and Hoodoo
Carolyn Morrow Long, Smithsonian Institution

Motives and Meanings of Black Christianization in the Colonial and Antebellum Eras
Randolph Ferguson Scully, George Mason University

Voodoo, Women’s Religion, and Social Suffering in New Orleans: New Research on Old Spiritualities
Martha C. Ward, University of New Orleans

Religion at Colonial Williamsburg

BY JOHN FEA

It has been over thirty years since I last visited Colonial Williamsburg. (I have vivid memories of sitting on the edge of a hotel bed with my father watching Richard Nixon resign the presidency on Aug. 9, 1974). So when I was invited to do a book talk on Virginia's Northern Neck, I thought I would turn the trip into a little family excursion to this so-called "National Treasure."

I have been writing a bit about Williamsburg over at my blog, but I thought I would comment here on the role religion plays at America's premier living history museum. Here are a few random thoughts:

First, I noticed that the re-enactors (particularly George Washington) made a lot of references to "God" and "Providence" in their speeches. (I did not hear "Jesus" or "Jesus Christ" mentioned). This, I think, is an accurate reflection of how Washington would have spoken, but I wonder how much pressure the "powers that be" at CW have received from the large number of conservative evangelicals and "Christian America" types who may have petitioned for more religious language. While I can't verify this, I have heard that the administration at Williamsburg have tried to address this issue.

Second, the stock of colonial and revolutionary history at the Williamsburg Book Sellers (located in the CW Visitors Center) is quite impressive. They had a nice section on early American religion, which included both scholarly and popular treatments of the era. The closest thing they had to "Christian America" literature was Peter Lillback's George Washington's Sacred Fire, an extended argument for Washington's Christianity.

Third, the Jamestown National Park treats the role of religion in the colony, but they are careful to explain that it was not the driving force behind the settlement. There is a foundation of an Anglican Church dating back to 1639 located next to the newly discovered Jamestown fort. As the story goes, in 1994 archaeologist William Kelso started digging for the fort in the place he did because he believed that if the church had been previously found, then the fort could not have been far away. He, of course, was right.

Fourth, the National Park Service has a monument to Rev. Robert Hunt, the first Anglican who dedicated the settlement to the glory of God. There is also a huge cross behind the fort, a symbol of the original Anglican presence in Jamestown. Both of these religious displays played an important role in last year's 400th anniversary celebrations sponsored by Pat Robertson and a Christian America organization called Providence Forum. (I have blogged about these before).

Fifth, the African-American and Baptist experience in Virginia is vividly portrayed in a program that focuses on Gowan Pamphlet, a Black preacher, and James Ireland, a white Baptist preacher who was supposedly the most persecuted Baptist in the colony. This presentation was excellent and the characters were very clear about Virginia Baptist's early commitment to the separation of church and state.

Sixth, I stopped in at the historic Wren Building on the campus of William and Mary College. Those who follow religious news may remember the 2006 debate over whether or not a cross should be displayed in the Wren Building Chapel. (W&M religion professor David Holmes debated conservative think tanker Dinesh D'Souza on this issue. You can see the debate here.) What struck me about my visit to the Wren Chapel was the fact that this cross is actually quite small (about two feet in height). From what I understand, a compromise was reached in this case. The cross remains in the chapel, but it is now on display on the side of the room in a glass case rather than on the altar where it was originally located.

Overall, I was quite impressed with the way religion was integrated into everyday life at Colonial Williamsburg and the surrounding historical parks. It seems that one would be hard pressed to criticize the Foundation for failing to take notice of this essential aspect of early American life.

Of Summer and Spiritual Staycations

By Phillip Luke Sinitiere

With four young, growing children and a dissertation to finish--in addition to high gas prices as well as other expenses, I'm all about staycations. According to Wikipedia, a staycation is "a period of time in which an individual or family stays at home and relaxes at home or takes day trips from their home to area attractions."

So, inspired by Kelly's recent thoughts about Roadside Religion and summer vacation, Randall's previous reflections on "religious travelouges", and Mike's post on traveling through New Orleans, I wondered what a spiritual staycation might look like in Houston.

With limited funds, half a tank of gas (although my car does have a/c, a nice comfort for sweltering gulf coast summers), and a stack of Mapquest directions, what religious sites could I tour in Houston to get a sense of the city's spiritual offerings? Where might I take a first-time visitor to see some of the landmarks of Houston's religious landscape?



One place I'd go is to the Rothko Chapel. Built in 1971, it is home to religious services, spiritual ceremonies, and showcases art as well as other local events. I'd then travel the short distance into downtown Houston, stopping at the Islamic Da'wah Center, once home to Houston National Bank and co-founded by former Houston Rockets basketball star Hakeem Olajuwon. While in downtown I'd swing by Christ Church Cathedral, an Episcopal congregation founded in 1839 and still very active. The last stops in downtown before heading out to see the spiritual life of suburban Houston would be the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, recently renovated and (re)dedicated, and consecrated by one of Houston's religious superstars Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, and St. John's Downtown Church, a vibrant justice-oriented (Methodist) congregation led by the tireless service of Rudy and Juanita Rasmus.

Heading out to the suburbs and braving the dense Houston traffic, I'd stop at all 3 locations of Dr. Ralph West's Church Without Walls, billed as "a church that is not restricted by geographical location or sociological background, but limitless in God’s possibilities. It also represents a church where anyone is welcome." I'd then spend some time at the massive Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, Houston's newest Hindu temple, and heading back toward the city stop at Masjid Al-Farooq Islamic Center, where I was once a guest at Friday prayer (or "khutbah").





Other highlights of a summer spiritual staycation would take me to Congregation Brith Shalom, where Hasidic hip-hop, reggae artist Matisyahu once performed, and all 5 locations of Houston's Second Baptist Church (one of the earliest "multi-site" churches). I'd end the staycation with a stop at Lakewood Church, reported to be the nation's largest and fastest growing church and home of rising religious superstar, the "smiling preacher" Joel Osteen--and Marcos Witt, pastor of Lakewood's Hispanic congregation and winner of 4 Latin Grammy awards.


There are of course many other places to visit in Houston, but this would perhaps be a good start.
If you went on a spiritual staycation in your city or town, what what would fill the pages of your "religious travelogue"?

West Coast Paradise? Review of Contemporary Jewish Museum

Paul Harvey

Edward Rothstein provides a searching review of the new Contemporary Jewish Museum, located in downtown San Francisco (736 Mission Street), the latest Daniel Libeskind angular and geometrically challenging architectural production. It's on my visit list for the next trip to San Francisco. Rothstein writes:

Like so many other new museums, the Contemporary Jewish Museum is dedicated to a hyphenated American identity, in this case one that has flourished in the San Francisco Bay Area, with a Jewish population of 200,000 that ranks third among United States metropolitan regions. Jews lived in San Francisco from at least its early boom days, when they streamed in with other settlers during the Gold Rush. . . . .

In this atmosphere a particular style of American Judaism developed. It is highly assimilated, with many interfaith families; Judaism is treated more as a culture than a religion. History becomes less important than the issues of the present; and Jewish culture is closely associated with leftish political leanings.

He concludes with some fundamental questions that religious historians face all the time, as should contemporary celebrants of pluralism:

How can multiple perspectives and open-mindedness and diverse backgrounds be celebrated without a grounding in knowledge, without history, detail, object and belief? Can a museum serve its community without leading it into the unknown past as well as into speculative realms? Can the Jewish thrive without Judaism? . . . . for all the institution’s considerable appeal, Judaism’s fundamental, literal meanings — texts and laws and beliefs and history — are left outside the gates of paradise.