The light we kindle is set in the lamp of our history.
We inherit this free faith from the brave and gentle, fierce and outspoken, hearts and minds that have come before us.
Let us be worthy inheritors of this faith, and through our good works, pass it boldly to a new generation.
~ Rev. Audette Fulbright (All Souls Associate Minister 2016-2023)
All Souls Archives:
Preserving Our History
The mission of the Historical Society is to stimulate research into the history of The Unitarian Church of All Souls and its members, and to collect the records, memories, stories and artifacts of the All Souls community, preserving them for posterity. To that end, the Historical Society asks all leaders of All Souls groups and programs to save and send to us materials about the activities of their group or program, either in print by putting it in our mailbox in the church office, or electronically by emailing it to archives@allsoulsnyc.org.
We’re calling for materials and documents about any time in the life of your group, but particularly the last seven years, since the Bicentennial in 2019. Please send us written minutes, reports and correspondence that depicts your group’s activities, as well as photos of items or actual items you’ve created for All Souls, like T-shirts, hats, pins, banners, etc.
It would be great if you could add archives@allsoulsnyc.org to the email list for your group, so that we automatically receive things like meeting minutes.
Thank you!
Bill Bechman, President of the Historical Society
Jim Moskin, Coordinator of Art and Artifacts
Lois Coleman, Website Coordinator
Where are the All Souls Archives?
Our All Souls Archives are actually housed in two locations. The first is in Wiggin House (the 6-floor building across the courtyard from the sanctuary), on the floor above the All Souls School, and the second is in Chicago at the Meadville Lombard Theological School. Both are available for people doing research.
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The physical archives can be reached by taking the elevator to the top floor of Wiggin House, and then walking up another flight of stairs. There are two rooms where for years the late Lorraine Allen, our All Souls Archivist, and other volunteers worked to organize papers, books, art, and artifacts pertaining to the history of our congregation. In 2025, Rev. Kathleen Rolenz led the effort to get rid of surplus materials, with a goal of eventually making the rooms accessible as an exhibit area and workroom. Because of the flight of stairs, the Archives are not ADA-compliant. The doors are kept locked, and entry must be arranged by contacting a staff member or one of the Historical Society leaders.
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In 2014, the UUA-Unitarian Universalist Association established the UUA Congregational Records at the UU seminary, Meadville Lombard Theological School in Chicago. All Souls sent many boxes of paper files to Meadville, most of which were then digitized. These included handwritten meeting minutes from 1821. There are collections from many of the UU congregations in the USA. Our collection, named the Lorraine Allen Collection of the Unitarian Church of All Souls after our archivist extraordinaire (see below) who spearheaded the Archives Project until 2017, is the largest of the church collections.
Bill Bechman, coordinator of the Archives Project, looking at historic All Souls documents in the library at Meadville Lombard with the archivist
Accessing our Digital Archives
Most of the documents from All Souls that were sent to Meadville in 2017 have been made available online at collections.carli.illinois.edu/digital/collection/mls_allsouls. The records have also been added to JSTOR, a digital database of academic journals, books and archival materials, and can be searched at jstor.org/site/meadville/all-souls.
The digitized files include the minutes of the All Souls Board of Trustees meetings from 1819 through 1970; Annual Meeting minutes from 1922 to 1990; editions of the Quarterly Review from 1985 to 2011; copies of the Monthly Bulletin from 2010 to 2014; and a variety of programs, pamphlets, flyers and correspondence.
Handwritten notes from the minutes of the first meeting of the society in 1819 (click image to access a PDF version)
Collection Policies and Procedures for the
All Souls Archives at Meadville Lombard Library
The aim of the All Souls Historical Society, and the Meadville Lombard Library, is to collect and make accessible to researchers just about anything about All Souls that would be worth preserving for posterity. These are items that are original to the congregation, that is, they were created by and for the congregation, and All Souls (or someone affiliated with All Souls) can be considered the owner of them. After an interruption of several years due to the Covid pandemic and reconstruction of the church building, the Historical Society is now continuing the process of collecting materials that would be interesting to researchers in the future, and sending them to Meadville for preservation and digitization.
These materials include:
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Newsletters, meeting minutes, flyers, handouts, journals(etc.) that All Souls itself publishes
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Articles, pamphlets or books written by one of the ministers (but not published books that are under copyright - or old books whose copyright has expired - that we happen to have in the church library)
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Newspaper clippings of stories about the congregation
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Artefacts like T-shirts related to the congregation, pins, stickers and other ephemera.
These items can be in physical, printed, or electronic form, and must be in relatively good condition and not suffering from mold.
The subject matter of these items falls into three major categories:
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Materials and documents related to the ministers and ministry (sermons, orders of service, ministry work outside the church, etc.)
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Materials and documents related to the administration and governance of the congregation (like board minutes)
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Materials and documents related to congregational life (activities other than worship, like organizations and clubs that are part of congregation).
However, the church’s financial records are not preserved in the Archives. Meadville will preserve Board of Trustee minutes that discuss a budget and have some numbers, but they don’t want to preserve receipts, tax forms, or payroll data. They also will not preserve anything that contains personal data without the person’s permission.
If you lead a group or a program at All Souls, please help us by forwarding materials for the archives to archives@allsoulsnyc.org. Thank you!
Lorraine Allen, All Souls Archivist Extraordinaire
Lorraine Allen joined All Souls in 1979 and was involved in many activities, including the All Souls Historical Society, where she served as president for ten years. Her interest in the church’s history led her to the church archives on the sixth floor of Wiggin House where, in a windowless room with neither heat nor air-conditioning, decades’ worth of All Souls Board of Trustees minutes, Quarterly Reviews, Monthly Bulletins, photos, floor plans, architectural drawings, financial records, marriages files, books, paintings, VHS tapes and other miscellaneous treasures were kept. She set about putting it all in order, a project that lasted 30 years.
Many other dedicated women leaders of our congregation worked with Lorraine to preserve our history, including Angie Utt, Marietta Moskin, and Betty Clancy. Every Tuesday, all year, they participated in an exercise program, followed by lunch, and then headed upstairs to the sixth floor storage room to get to work organizing the archival materials.
In 2017, "The Lorraine Allen Collection of All Souls Archives" the results of her energy and talent, were transferred to temperature and humidity controlled facilities at Meadville Lombard Theological School. Every box of All Souls archival materials at Meadville has a label on it reading “In Honor of Lorraine Allen.” On Anniversary Sunday 2017, during the Deacons Luncheon, the Historical Society presented a unique award to Lorraine to honor her 30 years of dedicated work. Lorraine died in January 2020.
Christina Bellamy and Jim Moskin presenting the Historical Society
award to Lorraine Allen (center) to honor her many years of service to All Souls, 2017.