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Guide to the Carl French Henry Collection
GTU 89-10-09  
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Collection Details
 
Table of contents What's This?
  • Descriptive Summary
  • Access
  • Publication Rights
  • Preferred Citation
  • Acquisition Information
  • Biography / Administrative History
  • Scope and Content of Collection
  • Indexing Terms
  • Separated Material

  • Descriptive Summary

    Title: Carl French Henry collection
    Dates: 1892-1957
    Collection number: GTU 89-10-09
    Creator: Henry, Carl French
    Collection Size: 2 boxes

    .5 linear ft.
    Repository: The Graduate Theological Union. Library.
    Berkeley, CA 94709
    Abstract: This small collection consists of biographical materials of the Henry family (C.F. Henry, Rena M. Henry, his wife, Helen Henry, daughter and other family members), and Henry's records of marriages, correspondence, sermons, class lectures and information on Throop Memorial Universalist Church, Pasadena, CA. etc.
    Physical location: 4/B/3
    Languages: Languages represented in the collection: English

    Access

    Collection is open for research.

    Publication Rights

    Copyright has not been assigned to The Graduate Theological Union. All requests for permission to publish or quote from manuscripts must be submitted in writing to the Archivist. Permission for publication is given on behalf of The Graduate Theological Union as the owner of the physical items and is not intended to include or imply permission of the copyright holder, which must also be obtained by the reader.

    Preferred Citation

    Carl French Henry collection, GTU 89-10-09. Graduate Theological Union Archives, Berkeley, CA.

    Acquisition Information

    It is unknown when or from whom the collection was deposited in the Graduate Theological Union Library. The collection came in prior to the 1989 establishment of the GTU Archives, and there is no documentation. It is possible it came with material transferred from the Starr King School for the Ministry Library (Unitarian), when that library merged into the GTU Library in 1982.

    Biography / Administrative History

    Carl French Henry, 1867-1929, was born in Ohio. He grew up on a farm going to school first at a local district school, later to a near-by town high school. He attended Buchtel College, a Universalist institution, graduating in 1891. He earned the money to attend college by teaching high school, and running a boarding club furnishing meals to students. He attended Tufts College divinity school graduating in 1894. Tufts later granted him the honorary degree, Doctor of Divinity in 1924. He served the Universalist Church in Cleveland until 1905. It was there he married Rena M. Lathrop and their only child Helen was born. Feeling the need for training in Sunday School work, he then attended the Hartford School of Religious Pedagogy, receiving his degree in 1905.
    He was called to the pastorate of the Universalist Church, Bangor, Maine, 1906, then to North Attleboro, Massachusetts in 1911. In 1915, he accepted the call to Throop Memorial Universalist Church, Pasadena, CA. He was well liked in the church and the community. The major accomplishment of his time at Throop was the construction of the church, dedicated in 1923. He became ill in the summer of 1928 and died in January 1929, greatly mourned in the church and wider community leaving behind "a large company of devoted friends".
    In the memorial booklet published after his death, Carl French Henry, A Memorial, which can be found in the Graduate Theological Union Library Rare Books collection, it is said that he "was a devoted Universalist, - proud of his church, its doctrines and its history. Yet he had no quarrel with the churches of the older faith. Life was too short and there was too much to be done to waste time in fruitless controversy over doctrines and dogmas. He counted among his closest friends numerous ministers of orthodox churches, who were prompt to testify to his worth when the end came to him."

    Scope and Content of Collection

    This small collection consists of biographical materials of the Henry family (C.F.Henry, his wife Rena M. Henry, daughter Helen Henry and other family members), and Henry's records of marriages, correspondence, sermons, class lectures and information on Throop Memorial Universalist Church, Pasadena, CA. etc.
    It is unknown when or from whom the collection was deposited in the Graduate Theological Union Library. The collection came in prior to the 1989 establishment of the GTU Archives, and there is no documentation. It is possible it came with material transferred from the Starr King School for the Ministry Library (Unitarian), when that library merged into the GTU Library in 1982.

    Indexing Terms

    The following terms have been used to index the description of this collection in the library's online public access catalog.
    Universalist churches--Clergy--Biography
    Marriage records--Maine
    Marriage records--Massachusetts
    Marriage records--California
    Throop Memorial Universalist Church (Pasadena, Calif.)--History--Sources
    Henry, Carl F. (French)
    Henry, Rena M.
    Henry, Helen

    Separated Material

    Note

    Books transferred to the Graduate Theological Union Rare Books:
    • History of Throop Memorial Universalist Church, Pasadena, California, 1886-1961, by William Wallace Wilcox.
    • Carl French Henry, A Memorial. Privately Published, 1930
    • Seven Steps to Spiritual Construction, by Bernard C. Ruggles (The Kennedy Company: Oakland, Calif., 1909)

    Note

    Returned to the Throop Unitarian-Universalist Church, Pasadena, CA:
    • Picture: Carl F. Henry, ca. 1893
    • Picture: Throop Church, ca. 1924
    • Duplicate copies of Sermons by Henry, ca. 1923: "Mr. Burbank's Religion and Where He Fails; and "Religion and Science"
    • Duplicate copy of Church Dedication booklet, 11/18/1923
    • Church Newsletters: ca. 1914-1957