Guide to the William Gerald McLoughlin papers, 1700-2004

(Bulk 1960-1992)

John Hay Library , University Archives and Manuscripts
Box A
Brown University
Providence, RI 02912
Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148
Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu

Published in 2015

Collection Overview

Title:	William Gerald McLoughlin papers
Date range:	1700-2004, (bulk 1960-1992)
Creator:	McLoughlin, William Gerald
Extent:	114 Linear feet
Abstract:	Professor William Gerald McLoughlin taught history at Brown University from 1954-1992 and was an active and vocal participant professionally and personally in all of the issues and events during those years: freedom of speech, civil rights, racial equality, gender equality (Louise Lamphere sex discrimination case), nuclear energy, improving the Providence education system, the Vietnam War, divestment from South Africa, and US intervention in Nicaragua during the 1980s. His papers are particularly useful for studying the changes in America and their effect s at Brown University during his tenure. His major areas of scholarship were religion in America (particularly Baptists and Evangelicals), the Cherokee Indian Nation, antislavery movement, African Americans, and Rhode Island history. This collection contains research notes and subject files for his many research topics, drafts for some of his published books, correspondence with colleagues and friends, minutes for meetings of the various committees at Brown and in the community on which he served, and newspaper clippings for topics of importance to him.
Language of materials:	English
Repository:	John Hay Library , University Archives and Manuscripts
Collection number:	MS.2009.003

Scope & content

Professor William Gerald McLoughlin taught at Brown University from 1954-1992 and was an active and vocal participant professionally and personally in all of the issues and events during those years: freedom of speech, civil rights, racial equality, gender equality (Louise Lamphere sex discrimination case), nuclear energy, improving the Providence education system, the Vietnam War, divestment from South Africa, and US intervention in Nicaragua during the 1980s. His papers are particularly useful for studying the changes in America and their effects at Brown University during his tenure.

This collection contains research notes and subject files for his many scholarly research topics, drafts for some of his published books, correspondence with colleagues and friends, minutes for meetings of the various committees at Brown and in the community on which he served, and newspaper clippings for topics of importance to him.

This collection is arranged in 5 Series and each Series is further subdivided into Subseries.

Series 1. Cherokees and Native Americans This series contains his research notes, subject files, and drafts of his books on the Cherokee Indian Nation and Native Americans in general. He focused particularly on the influence of Christian missionaries on the life of the Cherokees and their struggle to remain an independent sovereign nation.

Series 2. Religion Religion was the focus of McLoughlin’s research interest throughout his career. He was passionately interested in how religion shaped American life and how it was used to implement social reforms. This Series is divided into 8 Subseries.

Series 3. Brown University. This series documents McLoughlin’s career at Brown University starting in 1954 and is organized in 9 Subseries. All aspects of his work at Brown University are represented.

Series 4. African Americans. At the time of his death, McLoughlin was in the research stage for a book with the working title “The Black Experience in Rhode Island, 1890-1990.” These files contain the materials he was collecting as well as early drafts for chapters.

Series 5. Personal. This series contains materials related to his many activities and interests that were not part of his professional duties at Brown University.

Arrangement

William McLoughlin used a combination of filing systems. He had labeled and organized files for most of his research notes, drafts for books, and course materials. The archives staff maintained the folder labels that he assigned.

His other filing system seems to have been a box he put next to his desk into which he placed whatever correspondence, committee minutes, newspaper clippings, memos, and notes he was working with at that time. They were put into the box when he was done. The contents of each "desk box" usually contained materials for one academic year although overlap of time periods was often true if a topic or set of correspondence spanned many years. There were a total of 35 boxes spanning the years 1960-1990.

The "desk boxes" contained rich documentation for his work as a professor, scholar, colleague, and activist. The scattered nature of the materials made them inaccessible for researchers. Therefore, archives staff sorted through all the materials and grouped documents together based on topic and correspondent. Descriptive folder titles were supplied by archives staff.

All of his materials (the ones he labeled and the ones labeled by archives staff) were then arranged alphabetically to group subjects together and facilitate access.

The collection is arranged into 5 series. All of the materials are arranged alphabetically within the series. The exception is Series 2. Subseries 2. Baptists (Isaac Backus) which contains the research materials McLouhglin used to create the book The Diary of Isaac Backus . The original order of the Backus research materials has been retained to show McLoughlin's process for creating that publication.

Series 1. Cherokees

• Subseries 1: Research on Cherokees and related topics
• Subseries 2: Publications about Cherokees
• Subseries 3: Native Americans (General)

Series 2. Religion

• Subseries 1: Modern Revivalism (Charles Finney, Billy Sunday, Billy Graham)
• Subseries 2: Baptists (Isaac Backus)
• Subseries 3: Sun Myung Moon
• Subseries 4: Liberation Theology
• Subseries 5: Henry Ward Beecher
• Subseries 6: Religion (General)
• Subseries 7: Sacred Journeys
• Subseries 8: Great Awakenings

Series 3. Brown University

• Subseries 1: Courses
• Subseries 2: History Department
• Subseries 3: Brown Departments and Committees
• Subseries 4: Activism
• Subseries 5: Keep Brown Green
• Subseries 6: Speeches (Conferences, Symposiums, Debates, etc.)
• Subseries 7: Articles and Projects
• Subseries 8: Correspondence
• Subseries 9: History (General)

Series 4. African Americans

Series 5. Personal

• Subseries 1: Activism
• Subseries 2: Personal
• Subseries 3: Calendars
• Subseries 4: Committee and Organizations

Biographical Note

William “Bill” Gerald McLoughlin was born June 11, 1922 in Maplewood, N.J., a son of William G. and Florence (Quinn) McLoughlin. During World War II, he served in the Army where he learned to fly and achieved the rank of 2nd Lieutenant and was a Liaison Pilot in the Army Field Artillery stationed at Fort Sill, Oklahoma. He graduated from Princeton University in 1947 and received a Ph.D. in the History of American Civilization from Harvard University in 1953. His dissertation was titled: Professional evangelism: the social significance of religious revivals since 1865. It was published in 1959 under the title Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham. During 1953-1954, he was a Fulbright Fellow at the University of London. He joined the Brown University faculty as an assistant professor in 1954 and became a full professor in 1963. In 1981, he was named the Annie McClelland and Willard Prescott Smith Professor of History and Religion. In June 1992, McLoughlin was named the first Chancellor's Fellow at Brown, allowing him to continue teaching full-time although he had earned emeritus status.

Professor McLoughlin was a tireless scholar. His major areas of scholarship were religion in America (particularly Baptists and Evangelicals), the Cherokee Indian Nation, antislavery movement, African Americans, and Rhode Island history. He authored 22 books, edited with full introductions 13 books, and published well over a hundred articles. At the time of his death he was in the research stage for a book with the working title “The Black Experience in Rhode Island, 1890-1990.” He gained and deserved a reputation as one of the country’s most influential historians of American religion and the complicated relationships between the Europeans, native peoples, and African Americans. His book titled New England Dissent: The Baptists and the Separation of Church and State won the Frederic G. Melcher Book Prize for the best book on “Religion in America” and was nominated for the National Book Award in 1972. He was elected to membership in the Massachusetts Historical Society in 1973 and the American Antiquarian Society in 1974.

As a professor, he was highly regarded by students and colleagues. He taught a legendary two-semester survey course called “The Social and Intellectual History of the United States” for nearly forty years. He demanded the best from his students and often received it through his sympathetic guidance and rigorous standards. In addition to the standard history courses, he also initiated unique courses on wide ranging subjects such as a course on the New Environmental Vision in 1991. He was always open to Group Independent Study Projects known as GISPs co-created with students on topics such as Central America, race relations, state government, and alternative education. Bill played a strong directive role in the American Civilization department and he was a founder of the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America. His colleagues sought his advice frequently and he was not shy about providing diplomatic opinions on tough subjects. His teaching extended into the community through numerous lectures to local groups. He enjoyed participating in the Rhode Island Committee for the Humanities grant to contribute essays related to Trinity Repertory Theater productions and lead discussions with the audience after the play.

His tireless energy extended well beyond Brown University to causes that were of importance to him. He was an active member of the American Civil Liberties Union serving on the Board of Directors, as the Chair of the Free Speech Committee, and as the Chair of the Church-State Committee. He opposed Brown's practice of allowing recruiters from the CIA on campus. He supported the students in their right to protest the Vietnam War. He vigorously opposed U.S. intervention in Central America during the 1980s and could often be found on Friday evenings standing with other protesters on the steps of the federal courthouse in Providence, holding up signs urging motorists to honk their horns if they opposed it also. He was keenly interested in the racial integration of the public schools in Rhode Island and was an active member of every parent-teacher organization throughout the years his children were in school. To protest the resistance for racial integration of the public schools he was a founder of the Freedom School of South Providence and served as its Principal during 1967. The Freedom School later became the Flynn Model Elementary School. He was posthumously inducted into the City of Providence, Martin Luther King Hall of Fame in 2004. His interest in environmental issues was expressed through his chairmanship of the Save the Trees / Keep Brown Green campaign. They raised funds to plant a tree on the Brown campus every Arbor Day and opposed the cutting of trees whenever possible.

He married Virginia Ward Duffy and they had 3 children: Helen McLoughlin Duffy, Gail McLoughlin-Elliott, and Martha McLoughlin Everett. He died on December 28, 1992.

Publications by William McLoughlin

• Billy Sunday Was His Real Name. (University of Chicago Press, 1955)
• Modern Revivalism: Charles Grandison Finney to Billy Graham. (Ronald Press, 1959)
• Billy Graham, Revivalist in a Secular Age. (Ronald Press, 1958)
• Charles Grandison Finney: Lecture on Revivals of Religion. (Harvard, 1960)
• Isaac Backus and the American Pietistic Tradition. (Little, Brown, 1967)
• The American evangelicals, 1800-1900, an anthology. (Harper & Row, 1968)
• Isaac Backus on church, state, and Calvinism: pamphlets, 1754-1789. (Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1968)
• Religion in America. (Houghton Mifflin, 1968)
• The Meaning of Henry Ward Beecher: An Essay on the Shifting Values of Mid-Victorian America, 1840-1870. (Knopf, 1970)
• New England Dissent, 1630-1833: The Baptists and the Separation of Church and State. (Harvard University Press, 1971)
• Preachers & politicians: two essays on the origins of the American Revolution. (American Antiquarian Society, 1977)
• Revivals, Awakenings, and Reform: An Essay on Religion and Social Change in America, 1607-1977. (University of Chicago Press, 1978)
• Rhode Island: A Bicentennial History. (W.W. Norton, 1978)
• The Diary of Isaac Backus. (Brown University Press, 1979)
• Cherokees and Missionaries, 1789-1839. (Yale University Press, 1984)
• The Cherokee ghost dance: essays on the Southeastern Indians, 1789-1861. (Mercer, 1984)
• Cherokee Renascence in the New Republic. (Princeton University Press, 1986)
• Rhode Island, a History. (W.W. Norton and the American Association for State and Local History, 1986)
• Champions of the Cherokees: Evan and John B. Jones. (Princeton University Press, 1990)
• Soul Liberty: The Baptists' Struggle in New England, 1630-1833. (University Press of New England, 1991)
• After the Trail of Tears: The Cherokees' Struggle for Sovereignty, 1839-1880. (University of North Carolina Press, 1993)
• Cherokees and Christianity, 1794-1870: Essays on Acculturation and Cultural Persistence. (University of Georgia Press, 1994)

Bibliography:

William Gerald McLoughlin, Obituary, New York Times, January 6, 1993

William Gerald McLoughlin, Obituary, Providence Journal, December 31, 1992

Access & Use

Access to the collection:	The collection is open without restriction with the exception of the files clearly marked as RESTRICTED UNTIL 2049 or until 2066. The collection can only be seen by prior appointment. Some materials may be stored off-site and cannot be produced on the same day on which they are requested.
Use of the materials:	Researchers are advised that express written permission to reproduce, quote, or otherwise publish any portion or extract from this collection related to official Brown University business and activities must be obtained from the Brown University Library. Although Brown University has physical ownership of the collection and the materials contained therein, it does not claim literary rights to the personal papers and manuscripts of William Gerald McLoughlin. It is up to the researcher to contact Virginia McLoughlin or her heirs and assigns to obtain permission to reproduce, quote, or otherwise publish any portion or extract from materials created by William Gerald McLoughlin.
Preferred citation:	Wiliam Gerald McLoughlin papers, Ms. 2009.003, Brown University Library.
Contact information:	John Hay Library , University Archives and Manuscripts Box A Brown University Providence, RI 02912 Telephone: Manuscripts: 401-863-3723; University Archives: 401-863-2148 Email: Manuscripts: hay@brown.edu; University Archives: archives@brown.edu

Administrative Information

ABOUT THE COLLECTION
Acquisition:	William Gerald McLoughlin donated the research materials for the "The Diary of Isaac Backus" in 1979 and 1991 (Series 2. Religion, Subseries 2. Baptists). Helen McLoughlin Duffy donated research materials on Sun Myung Moon in 2002 (Series 2. Religion, Subseries 3. Sun Myung Moon) and research and drafts for the book "Modern Revivalism" in 2003 (Series 2. Religion, Subseries 2. Modern Revivalism). Virginia McLoughlin donated the remaining materials in this collection in 2008.
ABOUT THE FINDING AID
Author:	Finding aid prepared by Karen Eberhart.
Encoding:	This finding aid was produced using the Archivists' Toolkit 2015-10-29
Descriptive rules:	Describing Archives: A Content Standard (DACS)

Additional Information

Related material:

Additional materials related to William McLoughlin's career at Brown University are found in: William G. McLoughlin papers, OF.1UF.M4.ASMT, Brown University Archives.

Separated material:

These books were collected by William McLoughlin as part of his research on the religious leader Sun Myung Moon. They have been cataloged as books and can be accessed through the Brown University catalog by searching for the titles. Holy Songs [Handwritten note by McLoughlin on title page: "These were written I am told by students at the Unification Seminary at Barrytown."] Toward our third century: 120 events illuminating the past, present and future of America . [Barrytown, NY] : Unification Theological Seminary, 1976. Hodges, Susan and Bryant, M. Darrol. Exploring unification theology . New York : E. Mellen Press, 1978. Horowitz, Irving Louis. Science, Sin, and Scholarship: the politics of Reverend Moon and the Unification Church . Cambridge : MIT Press, 1978. Kim, Chong-sun. Rev. Sun Myung Moon . Washington : University Press of America, 1978. Kim, Young Oon. Unification theology and christian thought . New York , N.Y. : Golden Gate Publishing Company, 1976. Lee, Sang Hun Communism: a critique and counter proposal . Washington, DC : Freedom Leadership Foundation, 1973. [Lee, Sang Hun] Unification thought : study guide . New York : Unification Thought Institute, 1974. Moon, Sun Myung. America in God's Providence: two speeches . New York, N.Y. : Bicentennial God Bless America Committee, 1976. Moon, Sun Myung. Christianity in crisis : new hope . New York, N.Y. : Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 1986. Moon, Sun Myung. Divine principle . Washington DC : Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 1973. Fifth edition. Moon, Sun Myung. Divine principle : six hour lecture . [Place of publication not identified] : Holy Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 1977. Moon, Sun Myung. The new future of Christianity . Washington, DC : Unification Church International, 1974. Moon, Sun Myung. New hope: twelve talks . Washington, D. C. : The Holy Spirit Association for the Unification of World Christianity, 1973. Moon, Sun Myung. Unification thought . New York, N.Y. : Unification Thought Institute, 1973. Sontag, Frederick. Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church . Nashville, Tenn. : Abingdon Press, 1977. Unification Theological Seminary. Catalog . Barrytown, N.Y. : Unification Theological Seminary, 1979. Warder, Michael Young. Another watchdog : a brief story of New York's newest daily and Sunday newspaper . New York, N.Y. : News World Communications, 1978. Wilson, Andrew. Communism: promise and practice . Washington : Freedom Leadership Foundation, 1975.

Inventory

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