Mary Werlein Mission Methodist Episcopal Church South (New Orleans, La.) records
Scope and Contents
This collection consists of administrative records for the Mary Werlein Mission Methodist Episcopal Church South (New Orleans, La.). A church register contains the following sections: pastors (1895-1921), marriages (1897-1914), baptisms (1896-1922), and members (1896-1923). Also included are quarterly conference meeting minutes for 1917.
Dates
- 1895 - 1923
Creator
Conditions Governing Access
Collection is open for research.
Conditions Governing Use
Physical rights are retained by the Centenary College of Louisiana Archives and Special Collections. Copyright is retained in accordance with U.S. copyright laws.
Biographical / Historical
The Mary Werlein Mission Methodist Episcopal Church South (New Orleans, La.) traces its history to
the Tchoupitoulas Mission Methodist Episcopal Church South (New Orleans, La.), which was
established around 1893 in the Irish Channel neighborhood. In 1895, the New Orleans District
Woman’s Parsonage and Home Missionary Society (WPHMS) assumed financial responsibility for the
mission. Membership records imply Mary Werlein formally joined the congregation in 1907; around
this time the name changed to the Mary Werlein Mission. The mission appears to have been
discontinued around 1925. As noted by Ellen Blue in "St. Mark's and the Social Gospel: Methodist Women and Civil
Rights in New Orleans, 1895-1965" (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 2011):
In addition to providing a place for street preaching and evangelism, the Werlein Mission carried out
urban ministries under the direction of Lillie Meekins, a city missionary from Covington [Louisiana].
In residence at the mission, Meekins was surrounded by mills, factories, and the tenements where
poorly paid laborers lived. She was determined to improve the lives of those around her. Mary Werlein,
the mission’s primary fund-raiser and a leader within the WPHMS, spent her time working for the
church, leading religious services in jails, and participating in activist women’s organizations,
especially those concerned with providing safe housing for single women.
Extent
1 Volumes
Language of Materials
English
Arrangement
Organized by subject, then chronologically.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
Unidentified.
Creator
- Title
- Finding Aid to the Mary Werlein Mission Methodist Episcopal Church South (New Orleans, La.) records
- Author
- Olivia Brignac and Chris Brown
- Date
- 2017
- Description rules
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
- Language of description
- English
- Script of description
- Latin
Repository Details
Part of the Centenary College of Louisiana Archives and Special Collections Repository