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Records of the Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ [UCC], Collection # RG 123, Arlington Public Library, Center for Local History
Charlene N. Bickford, for Rock Spring Congregation UCC, donated the materials in Subgroups 1 and 2 in July 2001. Caroline Westhaeffer donated the newsletters in Subgroup 3 in December 2004 and November 2006.
The Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ is a diverse religious community. It was founded in 1912 by a group of residents living in the Vanderwerken area of Arlington who wanted to form a congregational church. It is a church, according to its website, "united in Christian covenant to see the will of God as revealed in scripture, in tradition, and in Jesus Christ," and where every member has a say and all decisions are reached by consensus.
This inclusive and egalitarian organization became involved in the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s, most notably in its association with the Arlington Council on Human Relations. Consisting of a broad spectrum of people and which included many members of Rock Spring Congregational, the Arlington Council on Human Relations was formed in 1958 in order to improve the economic, civic, and racial conditions in Arlington County. Affiliated with the Virginia Council on Human Relations and coordinating with other local, regional, and national agencies and organizations, it sought to promote better understanding and communication while trying to lessen tensions between the different groups living and working within Arlington County's borders.
RG 123 has a mix of both textual and visual materials. The textual materials consist mainly of administrative records, such as correspondence, meeting minutes, mailing lists, financial records and announcements. The visual items include negatives (both glass plate and film) and lantern slides. The collection is a total of 3.5 linear feet. Overall, the materials range in date between 1908 and 2003; the textual records cover the late 1950s through 2003 (the bulk of the items stop in 1992) while the visual items span 1908 through 1948.
The collection contains information relating to the Rock Spring Congregational Church. The textual materials deal mostly with the Church's involvement with the Arlington Council on Human Relations. The negatives and slides, on the other hand, show images of the Church building and members of the Church as well as scenes from the Washington, D.C., area - scenic landscapes, historical monuments and structures, individual houses, canals, rivers, boats, bridges and roads. Also included are scenes from outside the immediate area, such as New York City, the Blue Ridge Mountain Range, and CB&Q (Chicago, Burlington and Quincy) Railroad construction.
RG 123 is divided into three subgroups.
**Please note that the visual materials in Subgroup 2 are housed in five boxes, but physically arranged according to image number, regardless of subject area. For box location, a second list is provided as a cross-reference for the user. LIST 2 is organized numerically by image number across the five boxes.
The newsletters for the Rock Spring Congregational Church (
Other collections regarding Arlington Churches are
Collections with more information on civil rights groups in Arlington can see
More about the Rock Spring neighborhood can be found in
Digitized photographs from Subgroup 2 can be found