The Ethical Platform - A Bibliographic Tangle

 

NYSEC Archives - The Ethical Platform

Ethical Culture Societies and their various national and international unions have, from time to time, been prolific in publishing their thought and their strategies through books, serials, and assorted ephemera.  The wealth of information is both impressive and awe-inspiring if also a bit daunting to one who would seek to document it.  One such "daunt" is The Ethical Platform.  

I first encountered The Ethical Platform on eBay.  I was delighted to acquire 8 platforms from the 1950s as new (to me) reading material and inspiration.  I wanted to find more, and find more I did during my recent trip to visit the New York Society for Ethical Culture and its archives.  In just one acid-free file box, I found about 50 issues of this serial and several associated typescripts.  This one box was in a room with 50 cabinet (doors), covering 3 shelves per cabinet (door), and holding about 4 file boxes per shelf.  You can do the math, and I can only wonder how many more issues of The Ethical Platform (plus other treasures) might be held in those boxes.

The problem (at the moment) is how to document even one issue of The Ethical Platform.  The image above is what most of the issues (that I have seen) look like.  Some have some additional graphic decoration.  Some have a different color of paper for the covers.  One or two--more?--were actually typeset and printed as opposed the more usual mimeograph format.  So far, I have been unable to discover Volume or Issue numbers for any but the two typeset issues.  When did the series begin?  How long did it continue?  Was it issued every week?  I haven't seen any bound copies.  The series is a NYSEC publication.  Did it succeed a previous publication from NYSEC?  AEU?

Completely apart from the lack of publication information, I am stumped about how to format these entries in the manner of the Chicago Manual of Style, partly because I have hit the limits of free access to the guide.  It looks like we'll have to address that issue with a budget of some sort, but in the meantime I will fall back on my network of Texas State scholars and see what we can come up with.  

Why is this a such a problem?  Well, I want to add things like this to the Bibliography of Ethical Culture (all from Algernon D. Black and that one acid-free file box):

• "War and the Human Conscience" (April 1, 1962)
• "Our Religious Freedom and the Supreme Court" (September 9, 1962)
• "Men--Angels, Devils, or Humans?" (August 23, 1964)
• "Our Attitude Toward China" (January 31, 1965)
• "Do We Still Fear Intermarriage?" (February 21, 1965)

And many more.  Just documenting these platforms isn't enough now.  I want to read them.  The task of making them accessible through digitization is still a dream.  We'll need a plan and a budget and a fair amount of human resources to make that happen.