Cinco de Mayo, Mother's Day, National Nurses Week, Mental Health Awareness Week, Memorial Day, Heritage Sunday, Older Americans Month, Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month—with so much to contemplate and celebrate, May flew by in the flash of an eye. We loaned our John Witherspoon clock to Morven in Princeton for an exhibit, where it will be on view through January 17, 2027. The William Tennent House Association also borrowed some artifacts this month, for their banquet on May 30, including the lock and key to William Tennent's Log College.
Before June rounds the corner, make sure you're caught up on all things Presbyterian history—check out what we've published this month and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Facebook.
We couldn't get done half what we do if it wasn't for the support of folks like you. We hope that if you're in a Spring giving mood, you'll consider making a donation to the PHS Annual Fund using the button below!
In May 1866, the Committee for Education of Freedmen shared its first annual report. The evening of May 12, 1965, saw the PCUS welcome the first woman ordained into the denomination. More Light Churches hosted their inaugural conference in May 1985, and in May 1992 Margaret Purchase was hard at work as a volunteer with the Friendship Service Project.
The last in a three-part series contextualizing the GA227 overtures addressing the restructuring of the PC(USA)'s World Mission, this final installment examines the decade two Presbyterian missionaries spent working for the church in Taiwan.
In honor of May being Older Americans Month, PHS introduces you to Maggie Kuhn, the founder of the Gray Panthers. Forced into retirement at 65 by her employer, the UPCUSA, Kuhn created an advocacy organization founded in the interest of eliminating mandatory retirement policies and protesting the war in Vietnam.
May is Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month. To honor this month, PHS remembers the life and work of the Reverend Jean Kim, the pastor in purple who spent 50 years in ministry with individuals experiencing homelessness in the Seattle area.
2026 marks the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Let's zip back in time to see how folks celebrated the Bicentennial of 1976 with the help of the Religious News Service Photograph Collection.
DOROTHY DAY'S BICENTENNIAL MESSAGE
Dorothy Day, the famed founder of the Catholic Workers Movement, testifies at the U.S. Catholic bishops bicentennial hearing at Our Lady of the Lake parish in Verona, N.J., a suburb of Newark. Miss Day's appearance was what Archbishop Peter Gerety called a "pleasant surprise" during the three days of hearings, since she had not been scheduled to speak at them.
Her message to the bishops — and to the nation about to celebrate its bicentennial — was a call to the practice of voluntary poverty, reform of the prison system, involvement in the peace movement, elimination of waste of natural resources, a simplification of the American way of life, all geared to "making the kind of society in which it is easy to be good."
On June 5, National Gun Violence Awareness Day, a prolonged period of bell ringing and other sound-making will take place at 45+ locations across the city of Philadelphia and beyond. Hosted by Penn Live Arts of the University of Pennsylvania, this event is a collaboration with Penn’s Office of the Chaplain, Interfaith Philadelphia and many faith-based organizations and other partners.
The sound installation will be paired with an interfaith vigil service and a community walk of reflection. The vigil begins promptly at 12:15 at the Penn Live Arts Annenberg Center, located at 3680 Walnut Street.
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