Collections : [Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary]

This series contains a commemorative album presented to Presbyterian missionary Edwin Carlyle Lobenstine and his wife, Susan Clark Lobenstine, on the occasion of his retirement from the National Christian Council of China. The album contains photographs, letters, cards and inscriptions from people who knew Lobenstine and his work in China. Represented here are people such as H.H. Kung 孔祥熙, the wealthiest person in China at the time and husband of Soong Ai-ling 宋藹齡; Zhang Boling 張伯苓, the founder of Nankai University; Earl Herbert Cressy, who worked with the Council on education; C.Y. Cheng 誠靜怡, the first General Secretary of the NCC of China; Charles Luther Boynton, long-time member of the NCC of China; Abbe Livingstone Warnshuis, leader of the International Missionary Council; Eugene E. Barnett of the Chinese YMCA; and Wu Tiecheng 吳鐵城, Chinese general and then-mayor of Shanghai. Several of the photos have lost their captions and many of the people represented in the album have yet to be identified. Several of the photographs depict the Ninth Biennial meeting of the NCC of China in 1933.

This series contains records of the branch officers' conference papers, programs and reports from individual branch meetings, and historical sketches of some branches. The programs are detailed and include lists of missionaries and their location throughout the world. The papers also touch on issues the Board dealt with such as having a separate foreign missionary society, union organizations, and missionary qualifications in regards to education and special training by way of preparation. Interspersed through the programs are presentations from the Children's Societies of the various branches. These meetings involved prayer and song as well as information from various missionary locations. The list of branch meetings is extensive and is limited to the east coast. The branches are a mix of states, counties, cities and towns. The branches are: Andover and Woburn Branch, New York State Branch, Barnstable Branch, Norfolk and Pilgrim Branch, Brooklyn District of New York State Branch, North Middlesex Branch, Eastern Connecticut Branch, Old Colony Branch, Eastern Maine Branch, Philadelphia Branch, Essex South Branch, Rhode Island Branch, Hampshire County Branch, Springfield Branch, Hartford Branch Suffolk Branch, Middlesex Branch, Vermont Branch, New Hampshire Branch, Western Maine Branch, New Haven Branch, Worcester County Branch.

This series contains correspondence, reports, and teaching materials of Frank C. Laubach, Christian missionary and educator, including news clippings of published letters, notes, maps, pamphlets, alphabet charts and lesson primers, and other materials from the period of 1930-1938 when Laubach began his literacy work in Dansalan, Lake Lanao, Philippines. This series also contains letters written, transcribed, and donated by Minnie K. Schultz (a colleague of Laubach), describing their work in Dansalan. Reports include an early manuscript of Laubach's theology of religion and science; descriptions of his visit to Latin America from 1942-1943 and his tour of the Near East, northern Africa, and the British Isles in 1947; reports entitled "Where the Lanao Literacy Campaign began and where it may end," "Key System of Teaching Illiterates," and "A Miracle in Lanao;" and reports related to the FMCNA/NCC Committee on World Literacy and Christian Literature, including the committee's 1943 financial statement, The Commonwealth of Australia's 1933 annual report on the Territory of Papau, and "A Digest of Christian Statistics of Protestant Missions: Educational and Medical Work," based on the World Christian Handbook of 1952. Finally, this series also contains Laubach's translation work including an early English-Maranow [Maranao] dictionary, and a translation of the Lanao Moro epic story, "How Bantugan Died in the Land Between Two Seas."

This series contains materials compiled by the Missionary Research Library that document foreign mission work in Australia, the Philippines, and Indonesia, largely during the early 20th century, including reports, minutes, correspondence, publications, and a sketchbook. The majority of materials relate to the Philippine committee of the Foreign Missions Conference of North America (FMCNA), of which E. K. Higdon was chairman. The sketchbook was kept by Rev. Anthony Wilson Thorold, Bishop of Rochester and later Bishop of Winchester, while on board the S.S. Australia and S.S. Parramatta, and includes views of Van Dieman Land, North Cape, Bay of Islands, Cape Brett, and Auckland, New Zealand; Honolulu, Diamond Head, and Waikiki, Oahu; the Suez Canal; Botany Bay, New South Wales; a missionary house in Samoa; Golden Gate, San Francisco, and more. The Report on the Progress of the Gospel in Polynesia is a 14 page folio manuscript in the hand of A.B. Putnam; it is his transcription of a speech by P.C. Colgrove given before the Society for Inquiry on December 7, 1840, and reports on atrocities but with emphasis on how missionaries have managed to convert many of the natives and how education and Christianity have spread.