This finding aid is made available for public use following the Universal 1.0 Public Domain Dedication Creative Commons designation.
This collection is open for research.
Onsite storage.
Lantern slides are very fragile. Please handle with care.
Formerly part of the independent Missionary Research Library (MRL), these records were accessioned by the Burke Library at the time of the MRL's closure in 1976.
The Missionary Research Library was created by John R. Mott in 1914 after the World Missionary Conference, held in Edinburgh, Scotland in 1910. It was created in order to be both a resource for missionaries, and a means to document the missionary movement. With funding from John D. Rockefeller, Mott stated, "We are now ready to…secure the most complete and serviceable missionary library and archives in the world. I desire it to be thoroughly interdenominational, ecumenical and international. It should be made preeminently rich in source material." It was located at the Madison Avenue headquarters of the Foreign Missionary Conference of North America. By the 1920s, funding was becoming scarce; therefore it was moved to the Brown Tower of the Union Theological Seminary, New York City in 1929. The Library was an important center of information and research. Active missionaries would consult the material of the Missionary Research Library while on furlough. Much of the Library's success was due to the director and librarian, Charles H. Fahs. Upon his retirement in 1948, the MRL's financial difficulties continued until it was integrated with the Burke Library's collections in 1976. In 2004, the Burke Library was fully integrated with the Columbia University Library system.
For detailed descriptions of slides, please consult the legacy spreadsheet by contacting Burke staff.
Missionary Research Library Archives: MRL6, China
Item description, MRL6: Missionary Research Library collection of lantern slides, box #, The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.
Slides processed and spreadsheet created by Brigette Kamsler in 2011. The finding aid was created by Leah Edelman in 2023.
This collection contains color and black and white lantern slides depicting mission related and general scenes in China circa 1920-1929, including hospitals and hospital personnel, medical schools and labs, landscapes, and city and village life including buildings and people. A number of images were taken or published by T. H. McAllister-Kelly Company, Inc. For detailed descriptions of slides, please consult the legacy spreadsheet by contacting Burke staff.
Some material in this collection may be protected by copyright and other rights. Information concerning copyright, fair use, and reproduction requests can be consulted at Columbia's Copyright Advisory Office.
This collection is arranged numerically.