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COLLECTION Identifier: MS Am 3363

William Edwin Parson scrapbook on Japan and pocket diary

Overview

Scrapbook on Japan and pocket diary kept by American pastor William Edwin Parson.

Dates

  • Creation: circa 1875-1878

Creator

Condition Description

Restricted volume (with plant material) is scuffed and spine has been replaced. Diary is in less good shape, the cover missing parts and crumbling.

Conditions Governing Access

Collection is open for research.

Extent

.3 linear feet (2 volumes in 1 box)

Scrapbook with pasted down label on cover, "Flowers". Contains dried plant material and other loose material, 1875-1876 and undated. Scrapbook also contains possibly hundreds of calling cards. With diary ("Letts's No. 35 Rough Diary, Scribbling Journal") kept 1877 and 1878, also with loose material inserted (printed clippings and manuscript notes).

Biographical / Historical

William Edwin Parson was born in Muncy (Pa.). He was called into the Civil War along with all students of his college; thereafter, Parson attended seminary in spite of being a wide-ranging thinker. He was a founder of a new Lutheran congregation, all of whose founders shared his point of view. In 1872 Parson met Japanese statesman Prince Iwakura Tomomi, head of the Iwakura Mission (Iwakura Shisetsudan), a group of Japanese citizens touring the U.S. and Europe to learn international systems. Parson took leave from the church, traveling with the Mission through Europe and finally to Japan where he taught and guided Japanese leaders. He married American Anna Rebecca Naille (1851-1917); they resided first in Japan and then the United States. Parson returned to pastorship of the church he founded, Church of the Reformation in Washington, D.C. He died at the family's retreat in Brooklin (Me.). (Source: Tim Parson, great-grandson of William Edwin Parson)

Arrangement

Arranged in order as received.

Custodial History

Ownership of collection prior to this acquisition is unknown.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

2021M-23. Gift of Charles Hunt and Jane Parson Trollinger, 2021 February 11.

Processing Information

This collection was processed to a basic level with minimal rehousing, organization, and preservation. (Melanie Wisner, 2021)

Genre / Form

Title
Parson, William Edwin, 1845-1905. William Edwin Parson scrapbook on Japan and pocket diary, circa 1875-1878 (MS Am 3363): Guide
Status
completed
Author
Houghton Library, Harvard University
Date
2021 August 7
Description rules
dacs
Language of description
und
EAD ID
hou04004

Repository Details

Part of the Houghton Library Repository

Houghton Library is Harvard College's principal repository for rare books and manuscripts, archives, and more. Houghton Library's collections represent the scope of human experience from ancient Egypt to twenty-first century Cambridge. With strengths primarily in North American and European history, literature, and culture, collections range in media from printed books and handwritten manuscripts to maps, drawings and paintings, prints, posters, photographs, film and audio recordings, and digital media, as well as costumes, theater props, and a wide range of other objects. Houghton Library has historically focused on collecting the written record of European and Eurocentric North American culture, yet it holds a large and diverse number of primary sources valuable for research on the languages, culture and history of indigenous peoples of the Americas, Africa, Asia and Oceania.

Houghton Library’s Reading Room is free and open to all who wish to use the library’s collections.

Contact:
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Harvard University
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