Inspiration and Innovation: Religion in the American West

Review of: "Inspiration and Innovation: Religion in the American West," by Todd M. Ker-stetter

Dakota Classis - Disbanded Churches

The Dakota Classis Disbanded Churches Record Group documents the corporate institutional lives of various small congregations in Iowa, North Dakota, South Dakota, Minnesota, and Nebraska in the late nineteenth and the twentieth centuries. The records typically include the minutes of the consistory and membership books. Occasionally, other materials are also included, such as treasurer’s records, young people’s society records, clippings, letters of reminiscence, and photographs. Collectively, these archives provide evidence for the history of rural and small town religious life in the trans-Mississippi prairies and northern plains over the span of a hundred years

Iowa Classis

The Iowa Classis Archives document the corporate institutional life of a regional classis of the Reformed Church in America based in Iowa in decades surrounding the turn of the 19th to the 20th century. The records include the minutes of the classis, church statistics, financial materials, and correspondence. Collectively, these archives provide evidence for the historical growth of a first- and second-generation Dutch-immigrant Protestant denomination in the trans-Mississippi prairies and northern plains over the span of thirty-four years

East Sioux Classis

The East Sioux Classis Archives document the corporate institutional life of a regional classis of the Reformed Church in America based in northwest Iowa in the mid and late twentieth century. The records include the minutes of the classis and related material. Collectively, these archives provide evidence for the historical growth of a multi-generational Dutch-immigrant Protestant denomination in the trans-Mississippi prairies and northern plains over seventy-five years

Germania/North Central Classis

The Germania/North Central Classis Archives document the corporate institutional life of a regional classis of the Reformed Church in America based in northwest Iowa, Minnesota, and South Dakota in the 20th century. The records include the minutes of the classis, church statistics, financial materials, and clergy records. Collectively, these archives provide evidence for the historical growth over almost fifty years of a multi-generational German-immigrant regional church organization affiliated with a Dutch Protestant denomination in the trans-Mississippi prairies and northern plains

Pleasant Prairie Academy

The Pleasant Prairie Academy Archives document the corporate institutional life of a regional academy (high school) of the Reformed Church in America based in Illinois from the last years of the 19th century through the first half of the 20th. The records include the Articles of Incorporation, deeds, minutes of the faculty, photographs, newspaper clippings, financial materials, student records, historical pamphlets, and correspondence. Collectively, these archives provide evidence for the multigenerational growth and acculturation of a German-speaking, Reformed-affiliated Ostfriesian group of Midwestern settlers

Evangelist for a Religion of Nature

Donald Worster’s A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir is a magisterial biography. It is the place to begin for understanding John Muir (1838-1914), the Scottish immigrant and popular U.S. Gilded Age and Progressive Era naturalist most famous as the self-appointed spokesperson for Yosemite Valley, the founder of the Sierra Club, and the most outspoken opponent of the damming of Hetch Hetchy Valley by the City of San Francisco. Worster explores Muir’s tensions and contradictions. He also astutely analyzes Muir’s religiously-inflected “passion for nature.” He clarifies that Muir was not a neo-Transcendentalist, let alone a Buddhist, but rather an evangelist for nature (creation) who never fully left behind the biblicist, anti-creedal, and anti-institutional sensibilities of the Campbellite Protestantism of his father

Eber: Pioneer in Iowa, 1854–1875

Review of: "Eber: Pioneer in Iowa, 1854–1875," by Ronald H. Stone

Henry Hospers Family Collection

The Henry Hospers Family Collection documents the life of Henry Hospers, his parents, his wife, his children, and other relatives. The collection includes correspondence, speeches, photocopies of newspaper articles, and photographs. Also included are psalm books, penmanship books, newspaper clippings, handwritten notes of information, and family trees. Collectively, these records provide evidence for the origins and development of the Dutch-American settlements of Pella and Orange City, Iowa, in the mid- to late-nineteenth century. Further, the records document the activities and interconnections of a Dutch immigrant family important in Iowa, in the Reformed Church in America, and in other places and institutions