The Asbury Journal 76/1: 109-122 © 2021 Asbury Theological Seminary DOI: 10.7252/Journal.01.2021S.07
From the Archives: The Poetry of Sterling M. MeansThe Pentecostal Publishing Company Collection Sometimes exploring an archive collection will uncover a 1 mystery. This happened recently as I was working with one of our archives book collections. The Pentecostal Publishing Company was founded about 1888 by Henry Clay Morrison, and merged with L. L. Pickett’s Pickett Publishing Company (at the same time Pickett’s Way of Faith holiness periodical merged with Morrison’s publishing efforts to ultimately become the Pentecostal Herald). The Pentecostal Publishing company remained active until 1942. During its time in operation, the Pentecostal Publishing Company published over 500 books primarily focusing on the Holiness Movement and the Methodist Episcopal Church South. Asbury Theological Seminary was given the rights to the publishing company material in H.C. Morrison’s will (H.C. Morrison was also the founder and first president of Asbury Theological Seminary). I became involved in a search to find materials published by the Pentecostal Publishing Company which we did not own in our collection in the archives. I found a copy of a rather obscure book called The Black Devils and Other Poems (1919) by Sterling M. Means. It was not unusual for Morrison to publish volumes of poetry, which he did occasionally, but this case stuck out. Sterling M. Means was listed as an African-American poet, and to my knowledge this was the only book published by Morrison written by an African-American in a catalogue of books that is heavily dominated by white male holiness preachers. It still remains a mystery to me how H.C. Morrison was connected to Sterling M. Means and how he came to publish this book. It is possible that Means, the pastor of a C.M.E. church in Lexington, Kentucky at the time, met Morrison in the area, perhaps at a camp meeting or some similar function. It is also possible that Means paid to self-publish through the Pentecostal Publishing Company (which would not be completely impossible- there are also church cookbooks published by the Pentecostal Publishing Companypossibly for fundraising purposes). This time period was in the middle of 109
