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News, events, updates, and tidbits from the Presbyterian Historical Society. Use tags to read related articles or sort by author for similar posts written by PHS staff members and volunteers.

A Missionary’s Music Messenger

July 10, 2015

During his 25 years as a Sunday school missionary, William H. Schureman traveled 300,000 miles through the wilds of Wyoming and Colorado--a distance equal to 12 times around the earth, or a one-way trip to the moon. His faithful companion that entire time was Cornelia, a reed pump organ. As he wrote in 1939 to Rev. Thomas Pears, Jr., the manager of the Presbyterian Historical Society at the time, “I possess nothing that I prize more highly than this little music messenger that has journeyed so long with me.”

Cornelia was manufactured by the Bilhorn...

Author:

David K

Tags:

Mission History, Music

William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes Monkey Trial

June 12, 2015

July 2015 marks the 90^th anniversary of the Scopes Monkey Trial, one of the most famous court cases in American history. Defending substitute high school teacher John Thomas Scopes was Clarence Darrow, one of the celebrity lawyers of the day. William Jennings Bryan—the “Great Commoner,” three-time Democratic nominee for President, and Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. ruling elder—argued for the prosecution, the State of Tennessee, which alleged that Scopes had broken the...

Author:

David K

Tags:

American History, Fundamentalism

Wikicommons Church Postcards

June 10, 2015 to June 12, 2015

The Presbyterian Historical Society has made a big splash on Wikipedia thanks to our volunteer, Pete Ekman. A retired finance professor, Dr. Ekman has been coming to the Society since October to scan Presbyterian Church postcards from our collection.

Postcards became popular in the United States after the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition in Chicago, when they were sold as souvenirs. By 1902, images of churches were common subjects...

Author:

David K

Tags:

Pearl Digital Collections, Digitization

The Presbyterian Beginnings of Fundamentalism

April 13, 2015

Note: The following blog post is the first of three that will run this year on Fundamentalism and Presbyterians. The second, on the Scopes Monkey Trial, will run in June and the third in September--DK

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Millions of Americans identify themselves as Christian fundamentalists. The size of the fundamentalist movement and the participatory zeal of many of its adherents allow it to shape national conversations over issues such as marriage, education, and foreign affairs. Fundamentalists exert huge power in nominating and electing public officials, including presidents....

Author:

David K

Tags:

American History, Fundamentalism

Long Island Presbyterians: Our Puritan Beginnings

November 13, 2014

Before we give thanks for our many blessings this Thanksgiving season, let us set the record straight[1] about one aspect of the Pilgrim story. The Pilgrims who landed at Plymouth in 1620 were not Puritans. Most were Anglicans (who had little desire to change the Church of England) or Separatists (who wanted to leave the Church entirely).

Another common misconception is that all early Presbyterians in the American Colonies were Scots-Irish. In fact, a vital branch of Presbyterian history was formed by those same English emigrants we just...

Author:

David K

Tags:

Thanksgiving, Holidays, Congregations

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Blog

A Missionary’s Music Messenger

William Jennings Bryan and the Scopes Monkey Trial

Wikicommons Church Postcards

The Presbyterian Beginnings of Fundamentalism

Long Island Presbyterians: Our Puritan Beginnings