This collection is located on-site.
This collection has no restrictions.
Photographs and a privately published memoir collected by Paul B. Anderson, YMCA official. Included are seven albums with photographs, taken by Charles Riley, from the YMCA mission in Siberia in 1920; and a privately published memoir Shifting Scenes in Siberia by Gail Berg Reitzel, discussing her experiences with the YMCA in Siberia in 1919-1920. Riley's albums specifically concern: the Czech legion, 1920; and YMCA service in Manchuria, Vladivostok, and Tomsk, 1920.
You will need to make an appointment in advance to use this collection material in the Rare Book and Manuscript Library reading room. You can schedule an appointment once you've submitted your request through your Special Collections Research Account.
This collection is located on-site.
This collection has no restrictions.
Reproductions may be made for research purposes. The RBML maintains ownership of the physical material only. Copyright remains with the creator and his/her heirs. The responsibility to secure copyright permission rests with the patron.
Identification of specific item; Date (if known); Paul B. Anderson Collection; Box and Folder; Bakhmeteff Archive, Rare Book and Manuscript Library, Columbia University.
Privately published memoir Shifting Scenes in Siberia by Gail Berg Reitzel, discussing her experiences with the YMCA in Siberia in 1919-1920 is a part of general book collection: Call Number: DK265.7.R4 S55 1976g https://clio.columbia.edu/catalog/14384482
Materials may have been added to the collection since this finding aid was prepared. Contact rbml@columbia.edu for more information.
Collection: Source of acquisition--Paul B. Anderson. Method of acquisition--Gift; Date of acquisition--1976.
Columbia University Libraries, Rare Book and Manuscript Library
Collection Accessioned 1976.
Collection Processed 03/--/79.
Collection Revised 02/--/82.
2020-08-11 PDF removed, notes revised and extended, record updated by KSD. Bio note written by Tanya Chebotarev.
Paul B. Anderson (1894-1985), American public figure and dedicated YMCA official.
Paul Anderson was born on December 27, 1894 in Madrid, Iova. He spent his 48-year career working with the YMCAs International Committee. He joined the YMCA staff while a third-year student at the University of Iowa. His first assignment was in China in 1913 as private secretary to the country`s YMCA secretary general.
Returning to the United States in the spring of 1917, he was appointed to a similar position with John R. Mott, general secretary of the International YMCA Committees, who was sent on a diplomatic mission to Russia by President Woodrow Wilson. Paul Anderson lived in Russia during the overthrow of the Czar and Bolshevik takeover. In 1920, he was appointed YMCA secretary for Russian living outside of Russia, with headquarters in Berlin and then in Paris. In 1921, he helped to organize and then provided leadership to the Russian language YMCA Press for twenty-six years. The Press published over 400 titles, including Russian Orthodox theologians, scholarly work related to Communism, and the original Russian text of three of Alexander Solzhenitzyn's novels.
Anderson returned to New York in 1947 to serve as the Associate Executive Secretary for World Service until his retirement in 1961. He was awarded the French Legion of Honor with Palms medal and the Officer of the British Empire in recognition of his WWII work with prisoners of war. In 1972, the Archbishop of Canterbury presented him with the Lambreth Cross for his work in promoting good relations between Eastern Orthodox Church and Anglicanism.
Paul B. Anderson died in Black Mountains, N.C. on June 26, 1985.
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