On May 5, 1834, Rev. John Dunbar set out with two other men for a missionary exploration of the unknown region beyond the Rocky Mountains, on behalf of the First Presbyterian Church of Ithaca, NY. The mission was to be called "The Oregon Mission." Eighteen days later, however, when the men arrived in St. Louis, […]
Category: Student Entry
Isabel Chapin Barrows: Love and Tragedy in the 19th Century
It was late summer. The year was 1862. William Wilberforce Chapin, a young seminary student at Andover, writes to Miss Katie Belle Hayes in New Hampshire: Dear Miss Hayes. When I bode you goodbye at Andover I was expecting to spend the first week of vacation in making a tour through Vermont and Canada. Therefore […]
Post-Internship Thoughts
On the first day of my internship at Burke, Brigette, my internship supervisor, asked if I would write a blog post discussing what I expect from my internship and the overall experience. Would I want to be a processing archivist once the next few months were over? Not having had any experience processing a collection […]
State Council of Churches and Wrap-Up
I want to put in a quick plug for the collection that I just finished…on my LAST day of my internship here at the Burke Archives. Then I'll do a little wrap up of my time here and what I learned. WAB: State Council of Churches Records, 1943 – 1974. Abstract: Regional ecumenical and interfaith […]
Federal Council of Churches and the Bethlehem Steel Strike of 1910
While working on the Federal Council of Churches in America Records collection it is not surprising (considering my American Studies background) that I found the materials relating to the Bethlehem Steel strike of 1910 the most interesting. The materials comprise an almost minuscule portion of the collection; only one folder, but I love primary source […]
Be prepared!
If Hurricane Sandy and Winter Storm Athena have taught us anything, it’s to be prepared. We all knew that both storms were coming, and we were able to prepare to the best of our abilities, but nobody knew what the extent of the damage would be. If that has taught us anything else, it’s that […]
Unity in the Midst of Diversity
I have finished processing my very first ever archival collection, the American Bilateral Conversations Records in the William Adams Brown Ecumenical Archives Group. When I started I didn’t have much of an idea of what most of that meant. I had no idea what a bilateral conversation entailed and I was only faintly familiar with […]
The Beginning of a Beautiful Career: Interning at the Burke Library Archives
Scouring boxes of papers for an indication of original order, picking out rusty staples, developing an appreciation for acid-free paper, trying not to walk into film crews, eating lunch in a pristine courtyard, and translating the disturbing reports of prisoners of war: these were just a few of the things I did as an intern […]
“Such scenes are very afflicting to a European beholder…”: The Papers of Samuel Leigh
In his first letter to the Committee of the Methodist Missionary Society in London, the Reverend Samuel Leigh, a Wesleyan Missionary, wrote: While the above quote puts more emphasis on the differences of missionary work at home and abroad, it also applies to acclimating to an entirely new world and culture. Having been born and […]
One Collection Down…
Credit to WAB: City Council of Churches Records, Box 4, Folder 10, The Burke Library Archives (Columbia University Libraries) at Union Theological Seminary, New York. I started on August 28th, and ended on September 25th – in a little less than a month, I finished processing my first collection from start to finish. It’s incredible […]