Student research team discovers ancient bacteria in rare book collection

That could make a snappy headline, couldn’t it? Above the fold, even.

When Maddie Conatser, Caleb Horne, and Macee Valtr showed up after their biology class one afternoon back in March and pitched their idea, we immediately went back into the stacks and started working.  They came prepared with dry swabs, petri dishes, and a clipboard.  We had a great time browsing the stacks looking for interesting candidates to swab.  I selected books, I think Caleb took pictures and documented titles while Macee and Maddie  took turns preparing and executing the swabbing.  We collected samples from the spine or front cover, title page, and page 27 from each book.  The books I selected span the breadth of our collection: there is something here for everyone…American, African, and European…theology, hymnody, and history…from Coptic Christianity to the German Reformation to Abilene, Texas.

They went back to the lab, processed the samples, and wrote up their findings, which they presented in a poster session a few weeks hence.  Their findings, titled ‘Don’t Judge a Book by its Cover: An Analysis of Bacterial Presence on the Surface of Historical Books,’ didn’t surprise us (we expected to find something, and would have been surprised if there were none) but the experiment put them through all the paces of a sound research project.  The bonus is that it was just so much fun.  It was the first time they saw, much less handled, books of this age, and the opportunity to take a student research team back into the stacks for something like this was a highlight of my semester.  I am hopeful Dr. Jennifer Huddleston will assign another team to repeat this process on another batch of books next year.  Below are some pictures I took at their poster presentation:

And they graciously shared their paper! Enjoy!

Dr. Carisse Berryhill’s Presentations on Foremothers of Faith: Tennessee Women

Today’s post was written by student archive assistants Jeaniece Silas and Sarah Dillinger. Jeaniece Silas is a Senior Social Work major and child and family services minor from Fort Worth, Texas. She has been working in Special Collections for three years. Jeaniece enjoys processing collections and finding out historical information while working in Special Collections and hopes to pursue a career in social work when she graduates. Sarah is a Senior Social Studies major from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She has been working in Special Collections for three years. Sarah enjoys the research and connections she makes while working in Special Collections and hopes to pursue a career in history teaching when she graduates.

If you missed the first two parts of this series on the Foremothers of the Faith you can catch up here and here.

Foremothers of the Faith: Tennessee Women

Dr. Berryhill’s research also included other influential women in the Stone-Campbell movement in addition to the Campbell women. When she presented at the Harding University Lectureship, one of her sessions was over Tennessee women of faith, which included Sarah Andrews and Annie Tuggle. Both women were born in Tennessee, but Sarah Andrews moved to Japan and was significant to the churches there whereas Annie Tuggle stayed and impacted churches in Tennessee.

Sarah Andrews and her helper O’lki Naemura, photograph courtesy of Bettie Lundy. Miller, Messengers of the Risen Son in the Land of the Rising Sun (Leafwood, 2018): 129.

Over fifty women in Stone-Campbell movement were missionaries in Japan and their stories are recorded in the book Servants of the Risen Son in the Land of the Rising Sun (Japan) by Bonnie Miller. One of the women mentioned in the book was Sarah Andrews. Sarah Andrews was born on a farm near Dixon, Tennessee in 1892. At the young age of 12, she met missionary Kate Johnson from Japan while Kate was on furlough. At the age of 17, Sarah met J.M. McCaleb and decided to go to Japan as soon as she was able. In 1915, at age 23, she sailed to Japan where she spent most of her life planting churches and evangelizing to the Japanese.  In 1941, she was arrested after refusing to leave Japan during World War II. Sarah’s sister, Myrtle was in the U.S. and was worried about Sarah’s safety. Myrtle gave Sarah’s address to every U.S. soldier she invited over to her house and pleaded that they find her if they were stationed over in Japan. Four years after being arrested, American Forces found Sarah and she returned to the U.S. to recover. Upon arriving in the U.S., Sarah weighed 78 pounds because she was living off of grasshoppers while imprisoned in Japan. In 1949, four short years after returning to the U.S., Sarah went back to Japan. In 1961, at the age of 69, Sarah passed away in her home in Japan after suffering a stroke. She was buried in Numadzu, Japan. Sarah left behind her legacy which includes establishing four churches during her time as a missionary.

Annie C. Tuggle, from Robinson, I Was Under a Heavy Burden (ACU Press, 2011): 17

Another women that was influential in the Christian Movement was Annie Tuggle. Annie was born in 1890 in Germantown, Tennessee.  As a teenager she ran away to pursue her education at a teacher school which her Aunt helped her pay for. Religious men such as Marshall Keeble and J.P. Bousier played a very influential part in her life throughout the years of her schooling and early professional life. She went back to school and received her high school diploma at the age of 35, and later obtained a college degree from Tennessee A&I State College. Throughout Annie’s life she served in many roles specifically as a teacher, author, and church leader despite her being divorced within the prejudices of the time period. She wrote the first directory for African American Churches of Christ called Our Ministers and Song Leaders of the Church of Christ in 1945. In a span of 6 years, between 1964-1971, she went on mission trips to Jamaica, the Bahamas, and Haiti. She and her sister worked at selling insurance so that in 1973 she had enough money to publish her autobiography, Another World Wonder. Shortly thereafter in 1976, At the age of 85 she passed away in Perris, California.

These two women were very influential throughout their lifetime and are still prominent to many today. The Campbell women, Tennessee women and the others that were mentioned throughout the previous blog posts are truly foremothers of faith. However there are questions to consider. . . Will we see more women of faith writing and will their testimonies be published? Will women write in scholarly ways, or inclusively about other women? Will women’s writings be considered feminine literature? In what ways will more women contribute to scholarly literature?

Works cited:

Casey, Michael W. (1995) “Annie Tuggle: Historian and Educator for Black Churches of Christ,” Leaven: Vol. 3 : Iss. 2 , Article 16.

Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 21 December 2018), memorial page for Annie Clay Tuggle (22 Dec 1890–Jun 1976), Find A Grave Memorial no. 131790391, citing Easthaven Cemetery, Capleville, Shelby County, Tennessee, USA ; Maintained by Tom Childers (contributor 46515204) .

Tuggle, Annie C., “Our Ministers and Song Leaders of the Church of Christ” (1945). Stone-Campbell Books. 238.

Dr. Carisse Berryhill’s Presentations on Foremothers of the Faith: The Campbell Women

Today’s post was written by student archive assistants Jeaniece Silas and Sarah Dillinger. Jeaniece Silas is a Senior Social Work major and child and family services minor from Fort Worth, Texas. She has been working in Special Collections for three years. Jeaniece enjoys processing collections and finding out historical information while working in Special Collections and hopes to pursue a career in social work when she graduates. Sarah is a Senior Social Studies major from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. She has been working in Special Collections for three years. Sarah enjoys the research and connections she makes while working in Special Collections and hopes to pursue a career in history teaching when she graduates.

If you missed part one of this series on the Foremothers of the Faith you can catch up here.

Foremothers of the Faith: The Campbell Women

Why women? Well, men are everywhere, and even though women are physically in the story, they are often underrepresented in Christian literature and archives. For example, fifty-six single women went to Japan in the twentieth century as missionaries, and many people currently are not aware of this historical significance because it did not receive much coverage until Bonnie Miller’s book Messengers of the Risen Son in the Land of the Rising Sun was published in 2008. Also, in the appendix she alphabetically lists the women and puts how long they were in Japan as missionaries. Examples like this, where Christian women are hidden from historical significance despite great achievements, spurred Dr. Berryhill to research women in the Church of Christ Movement.

Selina Bakewell Campbell

Specifically in her research of women in the Church of Christ Movement, Dr. Berryhill has a deep understanding of the Campbell family, especially the women. Margaret Brown Campbell was the first wife of Alexander Campbell. She married Alexander at the age of 20 in 1811 and despite their personality differences, they complimented each other. Sadly, Margaret died at the age of 36 after a battle with tuberculosis, but she was able to see her youngest daughter read before she passed. Margaret also instructed Alexander to marry Selina Bakewell, a friend of Margaret’s and a member of a Church of Christ that Alexander preached at occasionally. Margaret wanted her five daughters to grow up with a mother and for Alexander to be able to pursue his speaking career. Selina was 14 years younger than Alexander, and married him just as his speaking career started causing him to travel frequently. Both of these women affected Alexander in different ways. Margaret and Alexander matured together, whereas Selina’s age difference as well as being a caregiver to Alexander’s children from Margaret as a foundation of their marriage caused their relationship to be different than his marriage with Margaret. However, Selina was influential in preserving Alexander’s legacy by writing a book about his life and his impact on the Church of Christ movement.

Two other influential Campbell women are Alexander’s mother, Jane Corneigle Campbell, and his sister, Jane Campbell McKeever. His mother brought him and his six siblings to the US from Ireland in 1809 to reunite with Alexander’s father, Thomas, in western Pennsylvania. Alexander was their eldest child and was 21 when they made the journey to America. While separated from Thomas, Jane continued to hold the family together and raise the children in a Christian setting. She led family devotion with the children each morning and every day she gave them individually Bible verses to memorize. Without this woman’s courage in taking seven children across the ocean by herself, and continuous dedication to the Christian upbringing of her family, we would not have the contributions to the Stone-Campbell Movement that her children provided.

Jane Campbell McKeever

In addition to his mother, Alexander’s sister, Jane Campbell McKeever also valued Christian teachings and she did so by starting a girl’s school called Pleasant Hill Seminary. Before starting the school, Jane McKeever helped her father, Thomas, with teaching children in churches and this helped form her to become a leading Christian educator that spurred her to create an intellectually stimulating school for girls. Alexander’s daughters were pupils in his sister’s school, and he considered his sister to be a valued colleague in Christian education. Pleasant Hill Seminary required the girls to take grammar, composition, geography, history, Latin, algebra, mathematics, natural philosophy, chemistry, botany, moral science, sacred literature and more. Alexander started Bethany College and both his college and Jane’s seminary frequently interacted with each other. Because of his relationship with Jane he was able to further develop an interest in education for women. Alexander speaks highly of Jane’s school Pleasant Hill Seminary in a letter included in The Millennial Harbinger stating that her school imparts “a rational, useful, and ornamental education” for females. Jane’s influence on Alexander and on the education of females added to the history of Christian education in the Stone-Campbell Movement.

These four women all contributed to the Stone-Campbell Movement, and because of their namesake they are more recognized among Christians within that movement. Dr. Berryhill for a large portion of her life has researched the Campbell family and through this research she discovered her desire to uncover other women leaders in the Christian movement. Next time we will travel to Tennessee to look at the lives of two other influential women.

References:

Campbell, A. (1848). Pleasant Hill Seminary. In W. K. Pendleton & R. Richardson (Eds.), The Millennial Harbinger (pp. 479). Bethany, VA: Alexander Campbell.

Miller, B. (2008). Servants of the Risen Son in the Land of the Rising Sun. Abilene, TX: Leafwood Publishers.