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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.

Margaret Towner Reflects

April 13, 2021

Margaret Towner wearing Reverend Forster Freeman's pulpit robe with cross, October 24, 1956. View in Pearl.

"Don't be the pet lamb of the congregation."

On January 20, 1978, longtime friend of PHS Ed Wicklein sat down with Margaret Ellen Towner for a brief interview on her early experiences as the first woman ordained as a minister of word and sacrament in the Presbyterian Church. Reflecting on twenty years of her ministry and change inside the...

Author:

David S

Tags:

Womens History, Pearl Digital Collections

Past PHS LIVE: Sarah Smith's Educational Advocacy for Arab Women

March 8, 2021

On March 4, Robert D. Stoddard, Jr. joined PHS Director of Communications Fred Tangeman for a conversation about his new book, Sarah and Her Sisters: American Missionary Pioneers in Arab Female Education, 1834-1937.

Sarah Huntington Smith organized a school for girls that would revolutionize female education in the Near East and begin bending the cultural arch toward female equality. Stoddard's recent history, Sarah and Her Sisters: American Missionary...

Author:

Kristen

Tags:

PHS Live, Lebanon, Syria, Womens History

Murphy Davis

March 4, 2021

“It is not always an easy task to affirm that even a murderer is a child of God, but we know that it is true. There is no act, no matter how vicious, that entirely blots out that identity.” –Murphy Davis to the Associated Press, 1986

We remember Murphy Davis, advocate for death row inmates and the homeless, who died last October. A Presbyterian minister, ordained in 1976, she and her husband Ed Loring took on as their life's work the practice of living in solidarity with the poor. In 1981 they founded...

Author:

David S

Tags:

Murphy Davis, Capital punishment, Womens History

Sarah Smith and Her Missionary Sisters: Forgotten Advocates for Arab Females

February 12, 2021

--By Robert D. Stoddard, Jr.

How can a school celebrate a milestone anniversary without knowing its history?

That was my dilemma in 1999 when, as the Lebanese American University vice president responsible for commemorating our seventy-fifth anniversary as a college, I could uncover precious little of the Presbyterian-related school’s history. Upon my retirement in 2005, I sought to verify the belief that LAU could trace its origin to a school for girls founded by a

...

Author:

Guest Blogger

Tags:

Womens History, Lebanon, Syria

New Frontiers in Mission & the Legacy of Margaret Flory

January 20, 2021

Margaret Flory was a pioneer in mission work for the Presbyterian Church. Throughout her long career with the Board of Foreign Missions, she created several cross-cultural ecumenical programs for youth, believing that that “the American church has much to learn from the rest of the world.” One of these programs, Junior Year Abroad, was one of the first study abroad programs in the country and allowed students to serve in places such as China, Brazil, India, Ghana, and the Philippines.

I recently processed Flory’s collection of personal papers as Record Group...

Author:

Elizabeth Wittrig

Tags:

Mission History, Womens History, Margaret Flory, Ecumenism, Archival Processing

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Blog

Margaret Towner Reflects

Past PHS LIVE: Sarah Smith's Educational Advocacy for Arab Women

Murphy Davis

Sarah Smith and Her Missionary Sisters: Forgotten Advocates for Arab Females

New Frontiers in Mission & the Legacy of Margaret Flory