historydata: Datasets for Historians

#' Presbyterians Statistics Through One Hundred Years
#'
#' This dataset contains transcriptions of annual denominational records for
#' Presbyterians in the United States. This data was compiled Herman Carl Weber
#' for the Presbyterian Church U.S.A. in 1927. For an explanation of the
#' variables, see the book from which the records were transcribed.
#'
#' @details Weber includes two sections, one of raw data compiled from the
#' Minutes of the General Assembly, which apparently includes the foreign
#' membership of the Presbyterian churches. The second section contains the data
#' that Weber used for his visualizations, which excludes the foreign membership
#' and makes various calculations on the data.
#'
#' Not all of the data in Weber is reproduced here. The data comes from part 1,
#' with the tables on financial information excluded.
#'
#' One field that varies in title from members received by exam to members
#' received by confession varies in title, but has been presumed to refer to the
#' same process.
#'
#' @author \href{http://lincolnmullen.com}{Lincoln Mullen}, George Mason
#'   University
#' @format A data frame with 133 observations of 37 variables.
#' @references Weber, Herman C. \emph{Presbyterian Statistics Through One
#'   Hundred Year, 1826--1926: Tabulated, Visualized, and Interpreted}.
#'   Philadelphia: The General Council, Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A., 1927.
#'   \url{http://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007109885}.
"presbyterians"