An archives is always acquiring new old material. Not only do we process new
collections but we add to existing ones. If an organization which has given its
records to the BGC Archives continues to have an active ministry, eventually it
will have more materials to add to is original accession, perhaps much more than
the original gift. The updating of two of the Archives' organization collections illustrates this process.Updating the Archives
The Continuing Story of Prison Fellowship
An example of this is Collection 274, the records of
Prison Fellowship Ministry. PFM, which was incorporated in 1976, gave its papers
to the Archives in 1984, which mostly covered the time period from its founding
until about 1979. These were processed and described and opened to use in April
1989. The collection then was in 22 boxes. In 1991, Prison Fellowship gave the
Archives its next accumulation of inactive files, these covering the years from
1979 to 1989. These have now also been processed and described and are available for use. The collection has now grown to 192 boxes, along with many photo albums and photographs. At left is a photo from the collection, showing a group of prisoners refurbishing a condemned home. This is one of many Community Service Projects organized by PFM around the country to provide means for prisoners to make meaningful contributions to their communities.
The documents in the original collection dealt mainly with Chuck Colson and the
origins of the Fellowship - the attempts to determine its ministry, the hiring of
staff, the development of programs in and contacts with jails and prisons across
the country, the recruitment of volunteers to work in their local jails and
prisons, the beginning of training programs for prisoners in the Bible and the
Christian life. The new updated collection now tells how Prison Fellowship
developed into one of the leading Evangelical institutions in the country and
traces the development of the organization and its programs. These include the
yearly Washington Seminar, during which selected prisoners who have demonstrated
commitment and ability are brought to Washington for training to help them serve as resource people for the Christian community within their prison; the in-prison seminars during which volunteers go to institutions across the country to lead Bible studies and seminars on personal growth; the marriage seminars for prisoners and their spouses; and Angel Tree, which provides a means for the children of prisoners to receive Christmas gifts from their parents. The files contain numerous testimonies from individual prisoners concerning the development of their own faith. The documents also tell the story of Justice Fellowship, which grew out of Prison Fellowship and became an agency devoted to studying the problems of the administration of criminal justice in the United States and developed models for healing the victim as well as criminal.
Many of the Archives' collections tell the story of a work in progress and over time chart the development of an individual or an organization. That is certainly the case with the Prison Fellowship collection. Its rich and varied story of grace, faith and service will be used and studied for many years to come.
EFMA Collection Grows Wider and Deeper
The updated administrative records of
EFMA (or Evangelical Fellowship of Mission Agencies) in Collection 165 is now
open for use by researchers. EFMA is an association of foreign and domestic
mission boards, which acts on behalf of its members in government relations,
cooperative purchasing and travel, visa applications, inter-mission relations,
and by providing fellowship and instruction through conferences and retreats.
This significant addition, which almost doubles the size of the collection,
includes more papers of EFMA's first two Executive Directors, Clyde Taylor and Wade Coggins (shown at the left, in the Association's Washington office), and also adds those of its most recent and current Executive Director Paul McKaughan. The annual correspondence series now extends through 1995, and the internal reference files on Protestant Christian agencies, leaders and relevant themes are supplemented with new material. The update also adds EFMA board and committee minutes, and sample audits from member agencies, more than 250 audio tapes of sessions at EFMA's Spring conventions and Fall mission executive retreats, and over 200 photographs, including shots of Clyde Taylor and EFMA conferences. The new files add further detail to EFMA's story, show the Association's growth and change to meet the ongoing needs of its members and their missionaries, and illustrate its influence in the Evangelical community.
"Administrative records" may sound too routine to be interesting. But these
documents not only include a wealth of information, but new photographs as well,
which illustrate EFMA's participation in the worldwide Evangelical community.
While a few restrictions limit access to recent but small portions of the collection, the bulk of the collection is open and available.
Back to Table of Contents
*****Documentaries, Biographies, Genealogy - Recent
Research
in the Archives
A continuing stream of patrons visited the Archives from November 1, 2000, through February 28, 2001. Besides the Wheaton College students working on theses, papers, and class assignments, there were researchers from around Illinois, fourteen other states, the District of Columbia, Korea, and England. The work they did reflected a wide range of projects - evangelistic, scholarly and personal. Here are some examples:
Patricia Liggett and Beth Guthrie, production assistants with Radio Bible Class
Ministry, who were working on a television documentary for Day of Discovery.
They came seeking information on John and Betty Stam, missionaries with China
Inland Mission who were killed by Communist guerrillas in Miaosheo, China
in December 1934. The death of the Stams stirred fundamentalist Protestants in the United States to renewed missionary commitment with scores influenced by the Stam's example to go to the mission field. In the Elisabeth Alden (Scott) and John Cornelius Stam Collection ( CN 449) Liggett and Guthrie found a wealth of information, even a home movie of the Stam's wedding in Jinan, Shandong in 1933. During the day and a half of their visit to the Archives they were here they sifted through correspondence, reports, newspaper clippings, a diary, and photographs relating to the Stams' activities as missionaries and their deaths. These included many letters from the Stams that told their story in their own words, as well as a variety of documents from the investigation of their deaths by the Chinese and United States governments.
Another visitor was DeAnna Putnam, a journalist, who was working on a biography
of educator, author and Christian leader J. Christy Wilson Jr. (1921-1999). After 8
receiving permission from the Wilson family to use his unprocessed materials,
Putnam spent several days searching through four boxes of materials and listening
to the oral history interviews the Archives did with Wilson. Some of the items
in these boxes were Wilson's correspondence, dairies, prayer letters, clippings,
lectures and class notes, and reports. Wilson was born of missionary parents in
Iran and lived much of his life outside the United States. He was one of the
founders of Tentmakers International Exchange. After returning to the US in 1974
he became Professor of World Evangelization at Gordon-Conwell Theological
Seminary in South Hamilton, Massachusetts. The materials in the Archives,
including the hours of oral history interviews in which he reflected on his life,
documented, among other events, his work as the organizer of InterVarsity
Christian Fellowship's first Student Mission Convention, held in Toronto in 1946. (Later triennial meetings were called "Urbanas" after their site in Urbana, Illinois.)
Conrad Wilcox, a Wheaton alumni and former TEAM missionary, came to the Archives
seeking information on Rev. John McDonald, a missionary with the American Home
Missionary Society (AHMS). He was doing research for Mary Ewing Gosline, who was
writing a family history about the Joseph Ewing family of Douglas County,
Illinois and Ewing's father-in-law, Rev. McDonald. Gosline had contacted the
Archives previously but was unable to come and do the research herself. She
asked if there were any local historical or genealogical societies in the area
that might have someone who would be willing to do research. The Archives gave
her the web address for a local society and they gave her request to Wilcox. He
found several references to and letters by McDonald in the AHMS collection
(CN 142) This is
a microfilm collection which the Archives purchased. The same set of microfilm
can be found in many libraries and archives around the country. The American
Board of Home Missions was concerned with planting churches in United States
territories and newly formed states as the country expanded westward.
The AHMS records are a rich resource, not only for genealogical information on
hundreds of missionaries, but also for religious history and the story of the
American frontier.
Back to Table of Contents
*****
*****
This is an excerpt from the papers of Haman Cross, Sr., now available to users in Collection 573. Cross helped found Detroit's Afro-American Mission, Inc. in 1964 and served as its superintendent in the years that followed. Striving to "reach Afro-American families for Christ" in the metropolitan Detroit area, its programming for youth in the form of vacation Bible school offered an escape from "the concrete and asphalt jungle of the inner city," according to its director. The Mission further accomplished its mission through a variety of other programs: Bible clubs for children, Bible classes for adults, distribution of clothing and food to the needy, Bible and sewing classes for women and adolescent girls, girls' Pioneer Club, boys Christian Service Brigade, Sunday school classes, sports and recreation for children and adolescents, Sunday worship, choir and other musical groups, the Institute for Biblical Research, family social activities, prayer meetings, the Joshua Generation drama club, and special ministry to singles.
The bulk of the material is meeting minutes of the Mission's board of directors but also included in the collection are correspondence, budgets, balance sheets, proposals, pamphlets, resumes, blueprints, a deed of property, board of directors lists, organizational charts, reports, contracts, a questionnaire, rosters, mission worker reports, and superintendent's reports. Together these documents offer a glimpse of the workings of an inner city mission in the turbulent decades of the 1960s, 70s, and early 80s. The collection also includes five videotapes which offer a pictorial representation of Mission activities through the 90s.
Guides to all the collections mentioned in this newsletter can be found on the World Wide Web at the Archives' home page.
The address (or URL) for a list of collection guides in collection number order is: http://www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/guides/g1.htm
The address for a list of collection guides in alphabetical order, according to the name of the creator of the documents, is: http://www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/guides/g2.htm
Back to Table of Contents
*****
The Archives of the Billy Graham Center is a department of Wheaton College which collects and makes available documents on the part nondenominational Protestant efforts have
played in the spread of the Christian Gospel.
Robert Shuster, Director
Paul A. Ericksen, Associate Director
Wayne D. Weber, Reference Archivist
Christian Sawyer, Archival Coordinator
For further information, contact the archives at:
Archives of the Billy Graham Center
Wheaton College
Wheaton, IL 60187
or call (630) 752-5910
E-mail:
Home Page: http:/www2.wheaton.edu/bgc/archives/archhp1.html
Back to Table of Contents