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Serving Two Masters: John Menaul in the American West

June 11, 2017

“I have thought that my coming West was a great mistake. I must be in the wrong place or work, or I would not be so forsaken. In the midst of all my affliction vc [sic] in Africa, I could feel that I was in God’s work: but not so here. The trouble is the trying to serve two masters.”[1]

This was the reflection of the Revered John Menaul, a Presbyterian missionary, after five years of service in the New Mexico and Arizona Territories. A former missionary to Corisco, an island off the coast of West Africa, Menaul...

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Guest Blogger

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American History, Mission History, New Mexico, Arizona, Scholar Research

Psalms, Hymns, and…Piracy?

September 13, 2016

--by Christopher N. Phillips

How much do you love your church’s hymn-singing tradition? Enough to steal its hymnbook? That was the case for George Fleming, a newspaper publisher in Carlisle, Pennsylvania. Why would he do such a thing? A quick history of Presbyterian hymnbooks gives some clues.

Presbyterians, like most English-speaking Calvinists, didn’t sing hymns in church until the second half of the 18th century; it took the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America’s General Assembly (GA) until 1802 to declare that Isaac Watts’...

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Guest Blogger

Tags:

Scholar Research, American History

Head Start and Civil Rights

July 29, 2016

--by Crystal R. Sanders

The Child Development Group of Mississippi (CDGM) Head Start program was black Mississippians’ next battle in the long struggle to secure freedom and equality after the 1964 Civil Rights Act. The Presbyterian Church offered important support at crucial times for the effort.

Head Start, a component of President Lyndon Johnson’s...

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Guest Blogger

Tags:

African American History, Mississippi, Scholar Research, Civil Rights

“Burj Bird” and the Beirut Mission Compound: Researching Women in the Protestant Church of Ottoman Syria

May 31, 2016

--by Christine B. Lindner

One piece of advice I often give students and colleagues commencing a research project is to start with a research goal or question, but to let the archives guide your project. This advice reflects not only my commitment to empirically based research, but also my experience as a historian. Research projects are often refocused after hours of sorting through the dusty pages from the past when it becomes evident that there is scant archival material on a designated project. This does not mean abandoning the original project, but rather...

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Guest Blogger

Tags:

Scholar Research, Syria, Lebanon, Mission History, Womens History

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Serving Two Masters: John Menaul in the American West

Psalms, Hymns, and…Piracy?

Head Start and Civil Rights

“Burj Bird” and the Beirut Mission Compound: Researching Women in the Protestant Church of Ottoman Syria