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August 11, 1822.  Helen Maria Griggs was baptized and joined a Baptist church in Brookline, MA.  She offered herself to go to Burma, unmarried and alone, but the board had never sent a single lady to the mission field alone.  After examination, the board appointed her in 1829.  Before she sailed, however, she met and married Francis Mason, a student at Newton Theological Institution.  Their journey to Calcutta took 122 days; they then went on to Burma. Helen became proficient in the Burmese and Sgau Karen languages and was able to teach and write in both.  On a furlough to the States, she left her children in the care of family while she went back to Burma.  Although many children and even adults did not survive the conditions in the mission field, Helen was criticized for leaving her children.  Her decision was defended by the editors of Christian periodicals and attitudes quickly changed although the pain of leaving children did not.  Helen wrote:  “We have heard of the tortures of the Inquisition; but I do not know that they could exceed this self-sacrifice.”  ABHS has the record of many missionaries which show the illnesses, deaths, and sacrifices they endured.

August 8, 1789.  Virginia Baptists met with President George Washington to lobby for guarantees of religious liberty.  The Congress of the fledgling United States voted on the first version of the Bill of Rights on August 24, where the religious liberty provision was the third article.  ABHS has many statements, letters and books about the Baptist’s fight for religious liberty.

August 4, 1842.  Franklin College became the first college in Indiana to admit women.  Founded in 1834, it is a liberal arts college with over 1000 students, now about half women.  ABHS has historic information from Franklin College.

August 3, 1836.  August Hopkins Strong was born in Rochester, NY.  He was President of Rochester Theological Seminary in 1872-1912. A noted theologian, he was also a pastor in Massachusetts and Ohio.  The Rochester Theological Seminary merged with Crozer Theological Seminary  and Colgate Theological Seminary to become Colgate Rochester Crozer Divinity School.  ABHS has many records from all three schools and CRCDS as well as the papers of A.H. Strong, including his autobiography (4 volumes), lectures and sermon.  Part of the ABHS archives were houses at Colgate Rochester until about 2007.

July 31, 1861  Helen Barrett Montgomery was worn in Kingsville, OH.  She is known as an educator and writer, but was also a social reformer.  In 1921 she was elected the first woman president of the Northern Baptist Convention and the first of any religious denomination in the U.S. Before that, 1899, she was the first woman elected to the Rochester (NY) School Board, and any public office in the city.  This was 20 years before women had the vote.  She was also a scholar, publishing a translation of the New Testament from the original Greek, the first woman to do so.  ABHS has many articles written by Montgomery, and many books and articles about her.

American Baptist Historical Society is delighted to announce that Dr. Jenny Manasco, CA, has joined the professional team.  The search committee identified Manasco as the applicant whose training and experience best fit the needs of the Historical Society.  After earning a master of Library Science degree, Manasco worked fifteen years as librarian and archivist at Union University in Jackson, Tennessee.  During that time she became a Certified Archivist and received a Digital Archives Specialist certificate.  Prior to that, she earned an M.Div. and a Ph.D. (Old Testament Languages and Literature), both from Southern Baptist Theological Seminary.

As Digital Collections Specialist Manasco will be primarily responsible for digital archives at ABHS.  The digital project has two main foci:  the digitization of portions of current collections and the archiving of born-digital documents.  Manasco has begun by increasing accessibility to the catalog of books in the American Baptist Samuel Colgate Library.

 

July 27, 1707  The Philadelphia Baptist Association was founded as the first Baptist association in the U.S.  Five churches began the association which has grown to 124 congregations today. ABHS has records and minutes from this association beginning in 1770.  We also have the banner used to celebrate their 300th anniversary.

 

Today is the 100th anniversary of Walter Rauschenbusch’s death.  He was a great theologian and the innovator of the social gospel.   Recently a conference on “The Legacy of Walter Rauschenbusch” featured speakers who celebrated the contributions of this man whose wisdom is relevant in dealing with today’s issues.  Videos of some of those speakers, including Paul Raushenbush (pictured here), Walters’ great grandson, are available on ABHS’s YouTube channel.

July 24 2018   Now available in our on-line catalog, an inventory of the Francis F. Fardig Papers RG 1098.    We cannot find much about Fardig, but he was music director at Bacone College in 1930-1931. He took many photographs of the campus, music groups and people, such as Acee Blue Eagle, also named Alex C. McIntosh, on the Arkansas River.   Materials in the collection are primarily from Fardig’s time at Bacone College, including many of Native American subjects, like A.C. McIntosh and school choral groups and campus buildings, many identified. File list: Bacone materials; baptism photographs, Trail of Tears pageant 1931. To see the inventory, go to: https://libraries.mercer.edu/archivesspace

 

July 21, 2018  Now available in our on-line catalog, an inventory of the Ernest J. Sperring Papers RG 1570.  Sperring was born in Ontario, New York and received a BA from Houghton College in 1949, a Bachelor of Divinity from Eastern Baptist Seminary in 1952, and a Master of Theology from the same institution in 1961. He served in many East Coast churches including St. John’s Italian Baptist Church in Trenton, New Jersey, Mantua Baptist in Upper Darby, Pennsyvania and Highfield Baptist Church in Moncton, Canada. He served in the Navy during World War II in both the European and Pacific theaters, and taught courses at Atlantic Baptist University, where there is a scholarship in his name. This collection includes a large selection of sermons with inventory by date, subject and title. The donor has also graciously digitized a selection of recorded sermons and so we have some of Sperring’s sermons in audio form!   To see the inventory, go to: https://libraries.mercer.edu/archivesspace

 

 

July 19, 1651.  John Clarke, Obadiah Holmes and John Crandall arrived in Lynn, MA, and began preaching illegally. Baptists were considered heretics and were banned from Massachusetts.  Clark spent time in the Boston jail after preaching in Lynn.   He eventually helped found Rhode Island and Providence Plantations.  Holmes was severely whipped for his heretical views. A year later he was named pastor of the Newport, RI, Baptist church where he stayed for 30 years.  Crandall was imprisoned and whipped, and eventually help found the Baptist church at Westerly, Rl.  ABHS has many articles and histories from the Baptist churches in Lynn.