Emma Newman Papers: Finding Aid mssNewman
Brooke M. Black
The Huntington Library
February 2022
1151 Oxford Road
San Marino, California 91108
Business Number: (626) 405-2191
reference@huntington.org
Contributing Institution:
The Huntington Library
Title: Emma Newman papers
Creator:
Newman, Emma, 1838-1922
Identifier/Call Number: mssNewman
Physical Description:
2.08 Linear Feet
(5 boxes)
Date (inclusive): 1845-1921
Abstract: Papers of American Congregational minister Emma Newman.
Language of Material: Materials are in English.
Open for use by qualified researchers and by appointment. Please contact Reader Services at the Huntington Library for more
information.
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[Identification of item]. Emma Newman papers, The Huntington Library, San Marino, California.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Acquired from Martha Caroline Pritchard, December 1949.
Emma Emerson Newman (1838-1922) was a Congregational minister as well as a homeopathic practitioner and a "mental healer."
She grew up in Massachusetts, where she attended the Abbot Academy in Andover and was allowed to audit lectures at Andover
Theological Seminary where her grandfather was a founding trustee. She was a minister at the Congregational Church in Algonquin,
Illinois and served in churches in Missouri and Kansas where she was licensed to preach by association. She practiced in the
middle-western states before moving, about in 1896, to California, where she lived in Garvanza and Sierra Madre. In 1901,
she married her longtime friend and correspondent, Nicholas Emmerson. She was widowed in 1905 and passed away in Sierra Madre
in July 1922.
The papers include 16 volumes of Newman's diaries with entries from 1856 to 1897. There are 12 volumes of general notes, many
from classes she attended at Andover Seminary and from reading she did in homeopathic medicine and mental healing. There are
also 98 sermons, some complete and other in outline, accompanied by an index; 18 manuscripts, including an article on boarding-house
life; and several miscellaneous notes and copies of manuscripts. There is one letter written by Emma Newman and 14 letters
addressed to her. There are assorted other items including some fragmentary biographical material and ephemera.
Processed by Marisa E. Diehl in March 2001. In 2022, Brooke M. Black created a finding aid.
Organized in the following series: 1. Biographical items, correspondence, ephemera, and miscellaneous items; 2. Diaries; 3.
Notes and notebooks; 4. Manuscripts, notes, and sermons.
Former call number: mssNewman papers.
The collection is further described in: Walker, Randi Jones. Emma Newman, a frontier woman minister (Syracuse, N.Y. : Syracuse
University Press, 2000).
Subjects and Indexing Terms
Congregationalists -- United States -- Archives
Congregationalism -- United States -- History -- Sources
Homeopathy -- United States -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
Mental healing -- United States -- History -- 19th century -- Sources
Women clergy -- United States -- Sources
Women healers -- United States -- Archives
United States -- Church history -- 19th century -- Sources
United States -- Religion -- Sources
Diaries -- United States
Letters (correspondence) -- United States
Personal papers -- United States
Sermons -- United States
Abbot Academy
Andover Newton Theological School
Congregational Church of Algonquin (Algonquin, Ill.)
Box 1
Biographical items, correspondence, ephemera, and miscellaneous 1835-1921
Box 2, Box 3
Diaries 1856-1897
Box 4
Notes and notebooks 1856-1888
Box 5
Manuscripts, notes, and sermons 1872-1895