United Church of Canada Newfoundland and Labrador Conference Archives

United Church of Canada Newfoundland and Labrador Conference Archives

• Religious

In 1980, a new office building was opened for the Newfoundland and Labrador Conference of the United Church of Canada. This building is the site of the Conference Archives. Records were moved from the old vaults at Prince of Wales College (formerly the Methodist College) and relocated to the current site. This location contains an environmentally controlled vault for storage and a research reading room.

The mandate of the Conference Archives is to collect, preserve, and make available to researchers materials pertaining to the United Church of Canada in Newfoundland and Labrador and its antecedent congregations.

Holdings include education records, private papers, and the Wesleyana Collection donated by the late former Premier Joseph R. Smallwood. Over 100 Pastoral Charges comprise the Newfoundland and Labrador Conference and efforts are being made to consolidate their records in the Archives. These vital records date from 1794.

H.M. Dawe Photograph Collection

The H. M. Dawe Collection consists of textual material, photographs, lantern slides, 35 mm slides, and 16 mm films - all related to life in Newfoundland and Labrador in the mid-Twentieth Century. Available here are high-resolution scans of nearly 900 photographs from the collection, most of which were taken by H.M. Dawe throughout his missionary travels across the province between 1938 and 1959. These images provide rare photographic depictions of life and work in Newfoundland during this era, including many unique shots of communities, churches, boats, and people. The physical photographs, as well as the remainder of the collection, are currently housed in the United Church Archives in St. John's.

The Water Lily

Officially registered on January 14, 1892, The Water Lily was described by its editor Jessie Murray Ohman as "a Monthly Journal, devoted to the Interest of Temperance and Moral Reform." It is widely considered to be Newfoundland's first ever women's journal and was launched during the women's rights movement that emerged on the island near the end of the Nineteenth Century. Though closely affiliated with the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the paper was not officially connected with any society or supplemented by any funds. Its content was eclectic, ranging from news bits and politically-charged editorials advocating women's suffrage to romantic fiction and household hints. However, its main focus was on temperance, which was a popular cause - particularly for many women - in a time when alcohol was seen as the cause of a great number of social problems that affected the well-being of women and their families. The Water Lily was a short-lived publication - there are only 17 extant original issues. Despite its rarity, its influence and legacy can be seen nearly 100 years later in the feminist bulletin Waterlily, a project of East Coast Women and Words that ran in the province from 1989-1991.

The original issues are housed in the Archives at the Newfoundland and Labrador Conference office, United Church of Canada, St. John's.

The inventory is available for viewing. The Conference Archives Committee has produced a Records Management Guide for Congregations as well as a Collection Policy Guide.

Draft

Partial

Revised - April 11, 2013

• English

http://www.newlabconf.com
2001 ANLA Member Institutions Directory