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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.

Go and Teach: Presbyterian Educational Institutions in Utah

July 10, 2024
One of the early mission schools, Smithfield, Utah; image from Home Mission Monthly, October 1907 edition [Pearl ID:5512].

The history of denominational mission schools is lengthy and has legs in each U.S. state and in countries across the world — so perhaps it comes as no surprise that before there were Presbyterian churches in Utah, there were Presbyterian...

Author: 
McKenna
Tags: 
General Assembly
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GA History: Photos from the 202nd General Assembly

June 29, 2024
202nd General Assembly, Salt Lake City, Utah, June 1990. [Pearl ID: 6135]

This year, the PC(USA) General Assembly gathering is making its way west — the destination? Salt Lake City. This isn’t the first time the denominational meeting has crowded the streets of Salt Lake, though. Back in 1990, swaths of denim-clad congregants swarmed the beautiful, mountain-rimmed city, and,...

Author: 
McKenna
Tags: 
General Assembly
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Now Processed: Howard Rice Papers

January 10, 2023

“I cannot separate my confession of faith from my politics and have either faith or politics be meaningful. I cannot sit by comfortably and let my brothers starve whether they be low-paid laborers in this country or peasants in India.” The statement of faith written by a McCormick Seminary student in 1955 would guide the future moderator throughout his career.

The minister, theologian, and activist Howard Leland Rice was moderator of the 191st General Assembly of the UPCUSA. His personal records are now processed, in...

Author: 
David S
Tags: 
News and Events, General Assembly, Archival Processing, Collections
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Cesar Chavez at the 1974 General Assembly

June 27, 2022

In 1972, Fred Eyster, pastor of the United Church of Christ in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, told his church why his family was leaving the church to work for the United Farm Workers in California. Fred and Sue would be the eighteenth couple to join the National Farm Workers Ministry, an act of accompaniment with farm laborers under the aegis of the National Council of Churches. They would teach free school for laborers' children, work in the fields, and help organize the workers, while living as they did -- paid a subsistence wage, giving up middle-class suburban life.

"On a...

Author: 
David S
Tags: 
General Assembly, Labor Rights Movement
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Presbyterian General Assemblies Through a Family Lens

June 15, 2022

--by William Lake Leonard

William Lake Leonard is a retired attorney and member of the First Presbyterian Church of Philadelphia. He was a member of PHS's Board of Directors from 2009 to 2017; he has served on PHS's Advisory Council from 2017 to the present.

One of the highlights of my life as a Presbyterian was serving as a Commissioner to a meeting of the church’s General Assembly. In June of 2002, the 214th General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) met in Columbus, Ohio, and I served as an Elder Commissioner representing the...

Author: 
Guest Blogger
Tags: 
General Assembly
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