Time, delay, patience and expanding the capacity to understand

What a powerful way to understand, through the insights of an art historian, one aspect of the work of archives and archivists…

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.)

Understanding Cane Ridge: Some Suggestions for First Reads

In keeping with the spirit of this occasional series, I present here a few first-reads for inquiry concerning the revival at Cane Ridge, Kentucky, in 1801.  This list is in no particular order.  I hope it is helpful; feel free to post additional suggestions in the comments.

1. Anthony L. Dunnavant, Ed. Cane Ridge in Context: Perspectives on Barton W. Stone and the Revival. Nashville: Disciples of Christ Historical Society, 1992.

2. Paul K. Conkin, Cane Ridge, America’s Pentecost. Madison: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1990.

3. John B. Boles, The Great Revival, Beginnings of the Bible Belt. Lexington: The University Press of Kentucky, 1996.   This is a paperback reissue; originally published as The Great Revival, 1787-1805: The Origins of the Southern Evangelical Mind in 1972 by the same press.

4-6. Discipliana 65:3 (Fall 2005) contains papers presented at the Kirkpatrick Seminar at Shaker Village, KY, June 2005.  It was the scholarly journal published by Disciples of Christ Historical Society, Nashville, TN, and contains these papers: Rick Nutt, “Controversy in Christ: The Background and Context of Western Frontier Presbyterian Revivalism and the Movements Which Grew Out of It”; Stephen J. Stein, “Taking up the Full Cross: The Shaker Challenge to the Western Christians”; and Thomas H. Olbricht, “Rallied Under the Standard of Heaven.”

7. Lon D. Oliver, A Guide to the Cane Ridge Revival. Lexington Theological Seminary Occasional Studies. Lexington: Lexington Theological Seminary Library 1988.  Oliver did yeoman’s work in producing here an annotated bibliography of 194 entries plus fine excerpts from selected primary sources. Paperback, 54pp.

8. D. Newell Williams, Barton Stone, A Spiritual Biography. St. Louis: Chalice Press, 2000.  There are earlier biographies (Ware, West…get them if you can), but this is easily accessible and includes information others lack.

9. Bernard A. Weisberger, They Gathered At the River: The Story of the Great Revivalists and Their Impact Upon Religion in America. Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1958.

10. Charles A. Johnson, The Frontier Camp Meeting: Religion’s Harvest Time. Dallas: Southern Methodist University Press, 1955.

11-12. Franklin Reid McGuire, “Cane Ridge Meetinghouse” and D. Newell Williams, “Cane Ridge Revival” in The Encyclopedia of the Stone-Campbell Movement. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2004.

13. Leigh Eric Schmidt, Holy Fairs: Scottish Communions and American Revivals in the Early Modern Period. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1989.

14. Richard C. Goode, “Floating at Random Between Liberty and Obedience? Backgrounds to the Second Great Awakening’s Emotional Exercises” Discipliana 62:3 (Fall 2002).

15. Leigh Eric Schmidt, “‘A Practical Remembrance’: Cane Ridge in Historical Memory” Discipliana 61:2 (Summer 2001).

16. D. Newell Williams, “Barton Stone in 1804: From Port Tobacco to Cane Ridge” Stone-Campbell Journal 7:2 (Fall 2004).

Update:

17. Richard McNemar, The Kentucky Revival is available on Kindle; see http://www.amazon.com/The-Kentucky-Revival-ebook/dp/B0059CJGSQ and on Google Books http://books.google.com/books?id=Vx7f0s4zLXcC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false and archive.org: http://archive.org/details/kentuckyrevivalo00mcne

18. Catharine C. Cleveland, The Great Revival in the West, 1797-1805. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1916. Also available on google Books: http://books.google.com/books?id=Q4VoMqJ3_dMC&printsec=frontcover&dq=mcnemar,+kentucky+revival&source=bl&ots=am7zQ6y3Nh&sig=t2dZbUaThdLqua9TIvVj397F3Ms&hl=en&sa=X&ei=LBsUUN3AN4TO9QTL9YGgBg&ved=0CEEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=mcnemar%2C%20kentucky%20revival&f=false

19. C. Leonard Allen, Distant Voice:s Discovering a Forgotten Past for a Changing Church. Abilene: ACU Press, 1993 has a chapter on Communoin Festivals in Kentucky by which he frames Cane Ridge.

 

“To be a historian”: Quote without comment

This from Doris Kearns Goodwin via Garrison Keillor’s “Writer’s Almanac” (with thanks to Don Haymes for passing it on to me): 

To be a historian is to discover the facts in context, to discover what things mean, to lay before the reader your reconstruction of time, place, mood, to empathize even when you disagree. You read all the relevant material, you synthesize all the books, you speak to all the people you can, and then you write down what you know about the period. You feel you own it.

Update

Today was my last day at Disciples of Christ Historical Society in Nashville.   June 1, 2011 would have marked five years at the Society.  I visited DCHS for the first time as a researcher in March or April 1992.  I was working on a high school history project and Uncle RD Ice suggested I might find there some new information about Dr. K. C. Ice.  I did, and remember vividly the sights and even the smells as May Reed gave me a tour and assisted me with several volumes of Disciples’ Yearbooks.  A few weeks later I attended a lecture, perhaps the first Reed Lecture, and there met Eva Jean Wrather (who was very kind to me) and Carisse Berryhill (Carisse do you remember that?).  Carisse was also very kind and, indicating that if I ever needed assistance to please call her, gave me her card.  I caught very little of what was said that evening in the lecture hall, but I caught enough to know that I wanted to know more about and spend more time in this place.  Little did I ever imagine then that I would later be working in Spencer’s office at Eva Jean’s desk.

I am grateful for the many opportunities of the last five years: opportunities to process primary source archival materials, to provide research assistance for (by my best count) well over 2000 requests and to have met many fine people.  I am certainly much more familiar with the breadth and depth of Stone-Campbell universe; I likewise feel like a novice because of how much material is available for research and how many gaps there are in our collective published history.

Though we do not yet know what the future holds, we are grateful for many friends and family who are walking with us and who have come alongside us in the last month.  Very likely some who read these lines are among those who have supported or comforted us in any number of ways.  Please let me tell you again how much we appreciate it.  Pray for those of us who suffer from “unavoidable budgetary constraints.”

If you contacted me at ice (at) discipleshistory.org please note that I can be reached at icekm (at) aol (dot) com.  I am eager to assist in your research in any way I can, but reallize that I no longer have the Society’s collection at my fingertips.  I expect to resume more substantive stone-Campbell historical posts to this blog in the coming days.

Grace and peace.

Name Authority for Nashville, Tennessee Stone-Campbell Congregations

Name Authority for Nashville Tennessee Stone-Campbell Congregations

Click above to download a document listing 286 variants of time-, place- and character-names for the 228 known congregations of the Stone-Campbell movement in Nashville and Davidson County, Tennessee from 1820 to May 2010.

To my knowledge this is the first such compilation, and therefore, the most complete.  The publication of the list to this blog is a first step in my research toward a book on the Restoration Movement in Nashville.  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.

The story of these churches in Nashville needs to be told.  I ask for your help in telling it.

Nashville Churches of Christ History Group on Facebook

Nashville Churches of Christ History group is open to anyone interested in the Stone-Campbell movement in Nashville and Davidson County.  Here is the first post I made a few days ago:

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 1820’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.

The group is open to all.  Help spread the word and generate interest.