Every fall, The Mary Baker Eddy Library hosts an event for fellow employees of The Mother Church (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston). We’ve come to call it the Archives Open House. This one-day exhibit, held during National Archives Month in the United States, gives colleagues the opportunity to get up-close to the history of their organization—a history that the Library helps to preserve. Library employees choose “staff favorites” from the archives that speak to them. The result is a potpourri of artifacts on display, reflecting many different dimensions of Christian Science church history. The objects come in all different shapes, sizes, and formats. This podcast episode brings you inside the October 2022 open house. You’ll hear from staffers who selected items for display, as well as attendees who responded to what they encountered at the event.
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All of this month’s guests are staff members at The Mary Baker Eddy Library. In order of appearance:
Alison Kobierski Manager, Records Management and Special Collections
Allyson Lazar Senior Manager, Research & Collections
Dan Bullman Digital and Photo Collections Archivist
Jennifer DiPersio Assistant Records Analyst
Rivi Feinsilber Assistant Archivist
Tom Kliewer Research Associate
Meredith Telschow Assistant Registrar/Collections Specialist
Gallery: Artifacts discussed in this episode
All photos were taken at the Archives Open House on October 20, 2022. For more information about any of the items shown here, write to us using our Contact Us form.
Character-defining elements from The Mother Church (clockwise from bottom center): metal pipes from the solo section of the 1952 Aeolian-Skinner organ in The Mother Church Extension; wooden pipes, part of the Harmonia Aetheria, from the original 1906 Hook and Hastings organ in The Mother Church Extension; collection bag used for Mother Church services, undated; and flame-shaped torch globe from The Mother Church Original, undated.
Photograph of Gordon Converse (left) and William H. Stringer (right), during their 1958 tour of Egypt. Photo by Gordon Converse, © The Christian Science Monitor.
Turkey feather fan, circa 1900.
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, interleaved edition, 1940.
