Some Restoration Movement sites in downtown Nashville

At some point somewhere I talked about Restoration Movement sites in downtown Nashville, and how close they are.  At the risk of trivializing the geography (Alexander Campbell slept here!) it is worth noting that one cannot move around too much downtown without walking across some site where something fairly significant happened.

Metro Archives posted this photo from 1965 to their Facebook page some years ago.  It provided the perfect canvas to sketch out for my audience what I needed to say.

Downtown Nashville, aerial view, 1965. From Metro Nashville Archives

I must have been talking about the Hebrew Mission, because why else would that location be emphasized?  The green highlights are on city streets in front of locations of interest.  That is by design since Nashville natives know their city by street names, and that was one of my ‘hooks’ to draw in my audience.  Also, since most of the landmarks are now obliterated, the streets are all that remain (and some of them have been renamed).  This photo is also a good backdrop because 1) of the recognizable L&C Tower, and  2) it is so different from the skyline we now know (or have to endure).  Point being it grabbed attention and let me sketch out the historical geography of some of the important places that figured prominently in my talk.

Downtown Nashville, aerial view, 1965. From Metro Nashville Archives

So, start at the upper right corner, and we’ll go counter-clockwise:

*Foster Street Church, the Northeast Nashville outpost of the emerging suburban growth of Churches of Christ in the 1880s.  I think I mentioned this only to take advantage of the I-65 construction underway in this photo, and thereby make a point that the built environment has erased some of the important landmarks.  Even many locals 20 years ago had never heard of Foster Street Church.  Foster Street Church location is on the north margin of the on-ramp complex.

*Then go west over to Gay Street just north of the Capitol, site of the former Second Christian Church or Gay Street Christian Church, the major African-American congregation of Disciples and the first RM congregation in town to install an organ.  That building was a casualty of the Capitol Hill redevelopment program, mid 20th c.

*Then almost due south to Vine Street (later 7th Avenue, North), and we see a parking lot on the east side of the street, next to the tall hotel.  Site of the Vine Street Christian Church, built in 1889.

*Now a block or so south on 7th to the intersection at Broadway, to see the McQuiddy Printing Company building (still standing as the Barbershop Harmony Society headquarters).  This is where Gospel Advocate was edited and published for a generation, mid 20th. c.

*Now, turn the corner and at the back side of the Masonic Temple on the corner, within a stone’s throw of McQuiddy, is a four story red brick storefront with apartments above.  The Hebrew Mission occupied the ground floor of this building, ca. 1928-1932 or so.

*From there move northeast to Fifth Avenue, North, to see the Ryman Auditorium, and across the street from it the Central Church of Christ Girls Home (still standing in 1965, but would be razed in 1972).  Across Commerce to the north is Central Church Administration building and auditorium.

*Now hop up and over and across the alley to the Life and Casualty Insurance building.  The home office built before the tower is adjacent, red brick with a stone facade.  Both face 4th Avenue North just shy of Church Street.  Somewhere about where L&C complex sits was the Cherry Street Christian Church sat.  This was the grand building built for Jesse Babcock Ferguson in the late 1840s-early 1850s.  The old Church Street Christian Church sat about where the Public Library downtown branch sits, and it is not marked on this photo.

Time was you could drop me on just about any corner in Nashville, Tennessee, and not only could I find my way home, I could talk about RM sites along the way.  Given how much the built environment has changed in ten years, I don’t know if I would recognize it much at all.

 

“Your Church Music,” hymnal advertisement, 1915

This is the third in a short series of advertisements that caught my eye as I looked through some back issues of Christian Standard.  Scroll down to see the earlier two, especially the one for The New Make Christ King evangelistic hymnal.

I backed into an interest in hymnody only a few years ago, but it has been a very interesting and enjoyable interest to nurture.  So ads for hymnals and articles that describe or prescribe singing or worship practices are always a delight to discover.

How can this be useful for research?

–Bibliographically speaking, ads like this are helpful because they alert us to books that we might not have otherwise known existed.  Catalogs for publishing houses like Standard Publishing Company, Christian Publishing Company (which by 1915 became Christian Board of Publication), and Gospel Advocate Publishing Company (later McQuiddy Printing Company, then Gospel Advocate Company), were steadily produced at this time, and some even survive.  But, one cannot rely only on the catalogs since hymnals and song books come into and go out of print sometimes quickly.  Unless we have full runs of the catalogs then we will miss things.  And one cannot rely only on observing library holdings since they too have gaps.  It can be laborious to search Worldcat because catalogers sometimes abbreviate publisher names (using the item at hand which often abbreviate ‘Publishing’ as ‘Pub.’ as in Standard Pub. Co.).  This is understandable, however it renders the search process a little trickier than may first be apparent. In my experience, the ads are a good way to begin filling the gaps.  In this case, we have a nice array of hymnals, and looking over this list I see a couple books that are new to me: The Communion Choir and M. M. Davis’ Responsive Bible Readings for the Church chief among them.

–The publishers’ comments, sales pitches really, are instructive.  They reveal how the books are intended to be used.  Therefore we may infer that the hymns and songs selected and included in these books serve (in the minds of the compilers and publishers) to further the aims of activities like Sunday School instruction, ‘C. E. services’, evangelistic meetings, communion services, or the instruction of children.  Right off the bat, I see a book waiting to be written about the use of hymns and songs in the spiritual formation of children.  Or a book about the use of song in revivals and evangelistic meetings (Charles Reign Scoville’s work is a major example). The literature is easily at hand that will support such a study.  Ads like this will help researchers.

Here is the full back-page ad from Christian Standard, vol. 50, no. 44 (July 31, 1915):

Christian Standard, vol. 50, no. 44 (July 31, 1915)

 

 

Memories: Photographs and Stories from the Restoration Movement…2023 Pepperdine Bible Lectures presentation

Jerry Rushford, John Mark Hicks and Mac Ice present Memories: Photographs and Stories from the Restoration Movement.  Here is the slide presentation and here is the audio recording.

Nashville, The City of David (Lipscomb): Three issues of Gospel Advocate remember Lipscomb and his legacy

The December 6, 1917 issue of Gospel Advocate was devoted to the memory of the recently-deceased David Lipscomb.  It is a rich treasure of memories and tributes. To my knowledge this issue was the first to carry Lipscomb’s photograph on the cover. Similar covers followed in 1931 (the July 11 Davidson County Special Number) and 1939 (the December 7 special issue about the history of the Nashville congregations).

These three issues are of significant historical value. As primary sources they provide information unavailable elsewhere. As interpretive reflections they are a beginning point for how Lipscomb was remembered and how congregational history was recorded and carried forward. The 1917 issue, other than newspaper obituaries and Price Billingsley’s diary, is the first secondary source about the life and impact of David Lipscomb. The Billingsley diary (housed at Center for Restoration Studies, Abilene Christian University) contains a description of the funeral along with its author’s candid thoughts and impressions. It was not intended, at the time, for public reading.

The issue of the Advocate, however, is a product of the McQuiddy Printing Company and is most certainly intended to capture the mood and ethos in the air just after Lipscomb’s death and by way of the mails deliver it to subscribers wherever they may be. In point of time, it is the first published sustained historical reflection on Lipscomb’s life and ministry. The 1931 and 1939 special issues focus on Lipscomb’s activity on the ground among the citizens of Nashville’s neighborhoods. Here his legacy is as a church planter: an indefatigable, patient, faithful steward. He plants, he teaches, he preaches, he organizes. He observes shifting residential patterns and responds with congregational leadership development. To meet the needs of the emerging streetcar suburbs, he urges elders to take charge of teaching responsibilities, engage evangelists and establish congregations through peaceful migrations and church plants. The 1931 and 1939 issues are testimonies to the effects of this approach. Along the way they preserve details and photographic evidence that is simply unavailable elsewhere.

All three are available for download below.

Click here to download the December 6, 1917 David Lipscomb Memorial Number.

Click here to download the historical sections from the July 11, 1931 special issue about the history of the Nashville Churches of Christ

Click here to download the December 7, 1939 special issue about the history of the Nashville Churches of Christ.

A shelf of books by David Lipscomb

A strategy for congregational research

My Nashville research across the last ten years has evolved from an interest in Central Church (where I was then Associate Minister) to a much, much larger scope including each congregation in the county, every para-church ministry based in Nashville, and how the larger issues within Stone-Campbell history interact with local history in one city resulting in the ministry conducted on ground, in the trenches, in the congregations.  With that comes the innumerable evangelists, ministers and pastors who held forth weekly from pulpits across the city. Ambitious? Yes.  Perhaps too ambitious.  That may be a fair criticism, but the field is fertile and the more I survey the landscape and read the sources and uncover additional data, the more I’m convinced to stay the course.

In the last four years especially I have focused my efforts to obtain information about the smaller congregations, closed congregations, particularly congrgations which have closed in the last 40 to 50 years.  My rationale for this focus is that some history here is in some cases, potentially recoverable.  There are larger affluent congregations which have appearances of vitality…they are going nowhere soon.  I can only hope some one among them is heads-up enough to chronicle their ongoing history and preserve the materials they produced.  On the other hand are congregations which have long-ago closed and chances are good we might not ever know anything of them except a name and possibly a location (for example, Carroll Street Christian Church is absorbed into South College Street in 1920 forming Lindsley Avenue Church of Christ…no paper is known to exist from this church, and I can’t even find one photo of the old building, and there is no one remaining who has living memory of this congregation).  For all practical purposes Carroll Street Church of Christ may remain as mysterious in twenty years as it does now.  I’d be surprised to learn of 3 people now living in the city of Nashville who have even heard of it.

But the several congregations that closed in the 50’s-80’s (and some even in the last five years) remain accessible if only through documents and interviews.  Theoretically the paper (the bulletins, meeting minutes, directories, photographs, even potentially sermon tapes) has a good chance of survival in a basement or attic or closet.  Chances are still good that former members still live, or folks might be around–in Nashville or elsewhere–who grew up at these congregations.  Theoretically.  Potentially.  Hopefully.

Yet as time marches on there are more funerals…for example in the last year I missed opportunities to speak with three elderly folks about their memories at these now-closed churches…they were too ill to speak with me and now they are gone!  I did, however, speak at length with one woman in ther 90’s who I thought died long ago!  She is quite alive and lucid!

So from time to time I will highlight on this blog these closed congregations…closed in the recent past…with hopes that someone somewhere might look for them (I get hits on this blog by folks looking for all sorts of things, among them are several Nashville Churches of Christ).  Maybe we can stir up some interest and surface additional information.

A few days ago I posted about one such congregation, the Twelfth Avenue, North Church of Christ.  I have in the queue a post about New Shops Church of Christ in West Nashville.  There are more, several more.

Stay tuned, and remember, save the paper!

Nashville Churches of Christ History Facebook group

Nashville Churches of Christ History group is open to anyone interested in the history of the Stone-Campbell Movement in Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee. When I began the group about three years ago I said this:

I envision this community as a place to share common interest in the rich story of the Stone-Campbell Movement in Nashville. I am conducting research for a book which will highlight each congregation of Churches of Christ and Christian Churches from the 1810’s to the present…basically the entire movement from its beginning in our city until now. I envision this group as a place to share memories, photos, news and generate discussion and interest. Please join and contribute. Please feel free to contact me directly at icekm (at) aol (dot) com.

Since readership for this blog is significantly higher now than it was in 2010, let me offer another invitation.  The group is open to all. Help spread the word and generate interest. (astogetherwestandandsing…)

Joe Warlick’s Baptist Blunders, 1905

Joe S. Warlick, Baptist Blunders and J. N. Hall and His Fridays in a Muddle. Nashville: McQuiddy Printing Company, 1905. 86 pp., 9 x 5 7/8 in. paper covers.

For a sketch of Warlick’s life and career, go here.  For a brief sketch about Hall by Ben M. Bogard, go here.  For Hall’s memoirs, go here.  I’m unaware of any other comparable front-cover illustration in Stone-Campbell bibliography.  If you know of any, please comment as I’m happy to learn of it.

Name Authority for Nashville, Tennessee Stone-Campbell Congregations

Name Authority for Nashville Tennessee Stone-Campbell Congregations, September 2012

Click above to download a document listing 319 variants of time-, place- and character-names for the 227 known congregations of the Stone-Campbell movement in Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee from 1812 to September 2012.

To my knowledge my work in this area is the only such compilation, and therefore, the most complete.  The initial publication of the list to this blog was in May 2010 as a first step in my research toward a book on the Restoration Movement in Nashville.  I blogged then:

With over 200 congregations in this county, the congregational research alone will take years, perhaps the remainder of my life.  If I live to be 100 I may not finish even a rudimentary survey.  It may be too much:  too many congregations, too many preachers, too much ‘story’ to tell.

But this is where I am at the present.  I publish the list here to generate interest, additions, subtractions, corrections and clarifications.  Look it over and if I need to make changes, please let me know.

While congregational history is only one aspect of this project, this is where it all played out…on the ground in the congregations on a weekly basis.  Few congregations have attempted more than a list of preachers or a narrative of the expansion of the church building.  What I propose, as I wrote above, may be too much…too far to the other extreme.  But that fact changes not one whit the necessity of it being done.

The story of these churches in Nashville needs to be told.  I ask for your help in telling it.  look over my list; I solicit your critique. Contact me at icekm [at] aol [dot] com.

(The first version of the name authority, from May 2010, can be found here.)

Salvation from Sin reviewed in Christian Standard, 1913

OUR READING TABLE

“SALVATION FROM SIN.”

Such is the title of a book just from the press of the McQuiddy Printing Co., Nashville, Tenn.  It is composed of selections from the writings of David Lipscomb, and edited by J. W. Shepherd.  I hesitate not to say that this is one of the greatest books that has been published in the last ten years.  In saying this I do not mean to endorse all of its contents, for I think that the author misapplies some of his principles and misinterprets some Scriptures, but these are the rare exceptions.  The chapter on the Bible is exceptionally good, and is well worth the price of the book;  I have been a pretty close student of the blessed Book for about fifty years, but Bro. Lipscomb’s treatment of the subject has given me a better conception and a higher appreciation of it than I ever had before.  He points out with remarkable clearness and force the effect that the Bible has had upon the world’s civilization, and shows that even the material interests of men have been greatly enhanced through the influence of this Book.    The volume contains nineteen chapters of well-digested matter, and the whole book gives evidence of great care in its preparation for the press.  It gives evidence of wide and close study on the part of the author, and I can heartily commend it to the reading public.  Price, $1.50 per copy.

J. B. Briney.

PEWEE VALLEY, KY.

—–

“Our Reading Table,” Christian Standard, May 10, 1913, p. 769.