“Mississippi’s Greatest Minister”: A Historical Study of Cornelius W. Grafton’s 61-Year Pastorate, 1873-1934

Cornelius W. Grafton (b.1846, d.1934) pastored two Presbyterian churches in Southwest Mississippi for 61 consecutive years (1873-1934). He moderated the Presbyterian Church, U.S. General Assembly in 1916 and wrote a 658-page unpublished History of Presbyterianism in Mississippi. This dissertation studies Grafton’s ministry—his student years at the University of Mississippi and Columbia Theological Seminary, his sermons, his public opposition to lynching, and his periodical and historical writings—to understand how white Christians in the South thought of and responded to their context from Reconstruction through the Progressive Era and into the 1930’s. Many of the priorities of Grafton’s ministry corresponded to those of the fundamentalist movement. He believed that he lived and ministered in a world governed by divine providence. He preached and wrote for a primarily religious purpose, to bring people to Christian conversion and consecrated living. His interpretations of history and society flowed from his theological beliefs and sought to promote his religious aims

Getting into the thick (and thin) of it

The heart is a highly regulated system in which a combination of mechanisms work together to match cardiac output to the needs of the body. Loss of this regulation characterizes many cardiomyopathies, where muscle is either hypo- or hypercontractile. For many years, x-ray diffraction has been used to study the structural basis of myofilament length-dependent activation..

Community Development as a Therapeutic Force: A Case Study with Measurements

A cross-disciplinary study was undertaken to learn what the social sciences had to offer psychiatry in understanding mental illness. The authors hypothesized that human settlements deficient in satisfying basic physical, psychological, and social needs will evidence higher rates of psychiatric disorders than localities where such needs are met more adequately. A case study is presented showing how community development interventions that provided for greater self-esteem and other need satisfaction resulted in a lower rate of mental illness. Methods for measuring mental illness useful for further research are suggested. This piece originally appeared in Sociological Perspectives on Community Health (1974)