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The Archives Bulletin Board

This service is intended for Wheaton College students, faculty and staff; people who live in convenient driving range to campus; or people who will be visiting Wheaton's campus. Every month, this Bulletin Board will highlight a new document or set of documents that are available in the Archives. Come on over and have a look!

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Now Showing: Bulletin Board for October 1999: "A Twentieth Century Crusade" The Papers of Percy and Ruth Crawford

Letterhead from correspondence in Collection 544, Box 5, Folder 13.



Percy B. Crawford (1902-1960) was an evangelist known to other evangelists as a man who could preach a complete Gospel sermon in seven minutes. Ruth Marjorie (Duvall) Crawford was a talented musician accomplished on several instruments, as well as a composer, arranger and director of music. For about three decades their ministry was one of the best known and most active among Protestant Evangelicals and Fundamentalists in the United States. They were pioneers and innovators in youth ministry, radio, and television. Percy in addition was founder and president of The King's College.

On October 9, 1949, the Crawford's television program, Youth on the March became the first evangelistic program (perhaps the first religious program) broadcast coast to coast in the United States. Fifty years later to the day, October 9, 1999, the BGC Archives will be opening a new virtual exhibit on the web about the broadcast, "As this is our first broadcast..." Percy & Ruth Crawford and the Birth of Televangelism. Click here to go to the exhibit (starting October 9)

The Archives has films, videos, audio tapes, correspondence, manuscripts and other materials that tell the story of these evangelism pioneers. To find out more about them, click here to visit the guide to Collection 457, the Papers of Percy and Ruth Crawford.

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Last Revised: 10/7/99
Expiration: indefinite

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