Download

Download Full Text (17.9 MB)

Description

Tefft writes from New York after being appointed president of Genesee College. He is very upset at the "doings" of the 1851 Ohio Annual Conference, but grateful that the proposed resolutions against him were not passed. He also cannot understand the backstabbing he has endured from Dr. Charles Elliott. He supported Elliott through the contentious 1848 General Conference, and now has been betrayed by him. He describes himself as a martyr in relation to his work in Cincinnati (editor of Book Concern & Ladies Repository). As editor of the Repository, he dramatically increased circulation. When he began at the Book Concern, no books were being published. At the time he left, one book was being published each month. Apparently, members of the Ohio Conference did not appreciate his labors. [Note: When Tefft resigned as editor of the Ladies Repository in 1852, he wrote a farewell letter, discussing the controversy over his 1849 series called "The Shoulder-Knot," criticized as being a work of fiction rather than history as claimed. He states that "a complaint was raised against my Shoulder-Knot articles, and it was roundly but childishly asserted, sometimes by persons of official consequence, and by a great many of no consequence, that a continuance of the series would infallibly break down the work. Well, reader, it is now enough to say, that the series was continued, in the face of a great deal of shallow but mischievous talk." See Ladies Repository, v.12, 1852, p. 280, "Editor's Table: Farewell Words."] Abstract Number - 593

Abstract Number

593

Publication Date

12-17-1851

City

Lima, New York

Keywords

Book Agent Letters; Book Concern; Ohio Conference Letters; Ladies Repository; Charles Elliott; Genesee College (New York)

Letter from Benjamin F. Tefft to James B. Finley


Share

COinS