The Christoph Keller, Jr. Library is known throughout the Anglican world for having extensive special collections that focus on historic materials relating to the Episcopal Church. We’ve had an amazing time these past few weeks getting ready to show the world a sampling of materials relating to slavery. Many of the items on display come from our extensive pamphlet collection – we’ve been working on a project to add these titles to our online catalog, and it’s great to see these treasures on display. (To find pamphlet titles, do a keyword search for “208 T67” in our catalog and you can sort through thousands!)
Featuring a 1765 contractual agreement between Samuel Seabury and his father-in-law Edward Hicks, and a 1797 receipt for the purchase of a slave by Jacob Sherred, this exhibit explores colonial New York history as it relates to slavery and the Episcopal Church, with original materials relating to early New York and General Seminary history. In conjunction with this exhibit, your humble blogger and reference librarian gave a talk during the first week of classes to the students in Professor Shaner’s Slavery in the New Testament course. This discussion touched on how to do research using primary source materials and electronic research databases available in the library, plus a bit of printing history for good measure. Find out more by visiting the library!
Other materials in the exhibit include Morgan Godwyn’s 1680 publication in favor of educating slaves, plus many publications from the Society of the Propagation of the Gospel in Foreign Parts.
We are working with students to schedule a viewing of portions of the film Traces of the Trade, and we’ll let you know more about that event soon.
This exhibit will be up in the library until mid-March, so please do stop by and get some perspective on what Anglicans thought of slavery in the long 18th century!
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Wonderful article, handsome photographs, and such a compelling exhibit! Many thanks!