Finding Matthew Ies Spetter

 

Matthew Ies Spetter

A few weeks ago, while visiting the New York Society for Ethical Culture (NYSEC), I had an opportunity to work with an archive box that I had previously "rescued" from the basement.  The basement area in which archives are stored is due for renovation, and there are ongoing discussions about where and how to store the archived materials now located there.  While "rescue" is too strong a term for my action, I did take the opportunity that presented itself to me to carry the box from the basement to the new "office" for the Archives Team in Room 406B at NYSEC for further study.  

What prompted this rather audacious act was the label on the box:  "Matthew Ies Spetter, Platforms 1970-1978."  I recognized the name and wanted to know more about this man who fought in the Dutch Resistance during World War II, survived Auschwitz, and became an Ethical Culture Leader when he immigrated to the US.  Who wouldn't?

The box contained 83 mimeographed platforms presented at the Riverdale-Yonkers Society for Ethical Culture (RYSEC).  The platforms were published by RYSEC for distribution to subscribers in a serial called simply The Platform.   (There were also 5 or 6 typescripts of speeches given elsewhere or drafts of the later platforms in the box.)  One of the basic tasks in working with the archives is to document what we have.  I have done just that, and all of the platforms in that box that were published in The Platform are now listed in the Bibliography of Ethical Culture.  The same list plus the typescripts has been prepared for inclusion in the archive box as an inventory of its contents.  Since Spetter served as leader for RYSEC, there are likely to be many more platforms to be documented, but, first, we'll have to find them.

Fortunately, there are also a number of platforms given by Spetter at NYSEC.  When he retired from RYSEC, Spetter became a part-time leader at NYSEC.  Many of these were published in The Ethical Platform, NYSEC's in-house serial.  More about those in another post.

Now we come to another basic task for this work:  digitization.  Digitization--or scanning--is a much more time-consuming aspect of the work, but it is needful since so much of the past work of leaders and thinkers in the Movement is out of print or unpublished or no longer being sold.  By digitizing these works, we can store them in offsite (or in the cloud) locations, which protects against the loss of items for which there are only one or a few copies.  

One further benefit of digitization is the possibility of making the work accessible to a wider audience.  Right now, unless RYSEC has the means to have a reading or lending library, these particular platforms cannot be seen by the general membership.  Once they are digitized, they can be stored on a website or drive that is accessible to members.  

There are a lot of steps yet to complete before that can happen, but the process has begun.  We have requested permission from RYSEC to post these platforms online once we have scanned them.  We still have to do the scanning, set up the online storage repository, and develop policies for access, but we have a tentative target of May 15, 2025, to have something ready for member, if not public, access.  May 15, 2025, will mark the beginning of the 150th year since the Ethical Culture Movement was founded.  We will have a lot of reading to catch up on before the 150th anniversary rolls around!