Newell Dwight Hillis Papers (1883 - 1964). 4 record cartons, 2 boxes (60 linear inches).
ArMs 1985.004
Newell Dwight Hillis (1858 -1929) was a noted clergyman of his day. After several pastorates in the midwest, Hillis was called to the Plymouth Congregational Church in Brooklyn in 1899. Plymouth Church was then well known as the Church of Henry Ward Beecher and Lyman Abbot, whom Hillis succeeded. While at Plymouth Church Hillis gained in reputation as a preacher, lecturer and author. Among Hillis’s activities outside of Plymouth Church were his involvement in plans for the beautification of Brooklyn, his extensive lecture tours, and his articles and publications on spiritual matters and current topics.
The Newell Dwight Hillis Papers consist of Hillis’s correspondence and writings, business and financial records, ephemera, newsclippings, scrapbooks and family papers. The major activities of Hillis’s career which are well documented by the collection are his work in creating the Henry Ward Beecher Memorial and Plymouth Institute at Plymouth Church and his involvement in World War I which included two Liberty Loan tours and numerous articles, sermons and lectures on the events of the War and its aftermath.Correspondence and papers of Hillis’s children, Richard Hillis and Marjorie Hillis Roulston, and clippings and ephemera presumably collected by them make up a small part of the collection which post-dates Hillis’s death in 1929.