We are excited to announce that ABHS has been awarded a grant from the National Park Service! This is the largest grant that ABHS has ever received, a grant of $119,153 from the Japanese American Confinement Sites (JACS) program of the National Park Service.
The project, Sharing the Stories: Increasing Access to Records Documenting Japanese American Confinement and Northern Baptists’ Response will digitize records that document the experience of Japanese American Baptists and the work of Northern Baptists who assisted those who were forcibly removed from their communities and incarcerated. To accomplish this, ABHS has hired a project archivist to scan and catalog the relevant records and assist in creating both a digital exhibit and a traveling exhibit.
How can you participate? ABHS would like to include the stories of American Baptist families and congregations whose records are not already in ABHS archival collections. If you or someone you know would be willing to share letters, photos, or other items related to the Japanese American experience in WWII, please let us know. You do not have to give us your family keepsakes. ABHS archivists will be in Seattle in May and Los Angeles June 20-24 for “Community Scanning Days” where we will set up equipment to scan personal collections.
This grant is a 2-1 matching grant so we will also be looking to you to help us raise our portion ($60,000). For more information, go to the “Sharing Stories” page under Special Projects in the menu at left.
Collection Opening and 15th Anniversary of ABHS hosted by Mercer University, Atlanta
J. Herbert & Elizabeth Cope served as missionaries in the Chin Hills of Burma, 1908-1938. A collection of artifacts and photos was donated in 1985 by A. Danforth Cope, their son, and a collection of family letters was recently donated by Penny and Bill Cutler, their granddaughter and her husband.
Please join us to celebrate the ongoing legacy of American Baptist ministry with Chin people in Myanmar/Burma and by Chin people in the U.S. with the opening of this collection of letters and artifacts. We also mark 15 years of Mercer University hosting ABHS on Mercer’s Atlanta campus.
Thursday, October 12, 2023 at 7:00 pm
2930 Flowers Rd S
Atlanta, GA 30341
RSVP to ABHSoffice@ABHSarchives.org
ABHS Dinner at ABCUSA Biennial Mission Summit in San Juan, Puerto Rico
The American Baptist Historical Society dinner will be co-hosted with the American Baptist Hispanic Caucus. Held on Saturday, June 24, 2023 at the Puerto Rico Convention Center, the focus will be on Women Leaders in Puerto Rico. Roshely Quiñones Rodríguez and Abigaíl Medina Betancourt will speak about their experience and mentors.
Another highlight of the dinner will be the presentation of the George D. Younger Award to the Lake Avenue Memorial Baptist Church of Rochester, NY. The George D. Younger Award is given for for Excellence in Local or Regional American Baptist History. Lake Avenue Memorial Baptist Church’s 18-month long celebration of their 150th anniversary was judged the winning entry this year.
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All Ministers Allowed to Marry in North Carolina
Dec. 22, 1776. Henry Abbot submitted a resolution to North Carolina allowing all ministers to perform marriages. Under colonial rule only the established church was authorized to perform the marriage ceremony, and this privilege was extended to dissenting sects only after ties with the mother country had been severed. Abbot’s resolution provided that ministers of…
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Missionaries Executed in WWII
Dec. 20, 1943. Eleven Baptist missionaries were captured and executed by the Japanese in the Philippines. The missionaries had been in hiding since the beginning of the war, supported by the local people. They created chapel they called Hopevale. Known as the Hopevale Martyrs, Jeannie Clare Adams, James “Jimmy” Howard Covell and his wife Charma…
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Jesse Mercer, Hymnist, Born
Dec. 16, 1769. Jesse Mercer, hymnist and preacher, was born in Halifax County, NC. Mercer University in Georgia was named after him. As a delegate to Georgia’s constitutional convention in 1798, he helped to defeat a proposal that would have made ministers ineligible to hold public office in Georgia. The convention’s delegates also gave Mercer the responsibility…
