Josiah Strong papers, 1855 -- 1969
Summary Information
Abstract
At a Glance
- Bib ID:
- 4492500 View CLIO record
- Creator(s):
- Strong, Josiah, 1847-1916
- Repository:
- Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary
- Physical Description:
- 6 boxes (2.5 linear feet; 6 boxes)
- Language(s):
- English .
- Access:
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This collectin is open for research.
The following boxes are located offsite: entire collection. Please note that requests for use of boxes held in offsite storage must be made three business days in advance.
Description
Scope and Contents
This collection contains Josiah Strong biography manuscript drafts by Elsie Strong with commentary notes by Margery Strong; correspondence and notes written by Josiah Strong, personal effects and memorabila, a travel diary, and other personal materials; as well as correspondence from and to Josiah Strong and correspondence between Strong's daughters Elsie and Margery to those involved with his biography, including publishers, scholars, and universities.
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Series 1: Biography drafts, 1855 -- 1916
This series contains Josiah Strong biography manuscript drafts by Elsie Strong with commentary notes by Margery Strong. Drafts are subdivided into Parts 1-4, and these parts are further divided by chapter. Chapters encapsulate Strong's entire life, from early childhood and background, early influences, his time out west as a missionary, his role in social service and religion, and his later years. The title of this unpublished manuscript was Josiah Strong: Social Pioneer, and was worked on for several decades by the daughters and Nathaniel Pratt, Charles Macfarland, C.Howard Hopkins, and Dorothea Muller.
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Series 1A: Personal papers, circa 1855 -- 1954
This series contains correspondence and notes written by Josiah Strong, personal effects and memorabila, a travel diary, and other materials.
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Series 2: Correspondence, 1883 -- 1969
This series contains correspondence from and to Josiah Strong, including correspondence with Theodore Roosevelt, Jacob Riis, WJ Pratt, William Dodge, Philip Schaff, founder of Howard University Major General Oliver O. Howard, Walter Rauschenbusch, and Woodrow Wilson. Organizations and topics in his correspondence include but are not limited to the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM), the Evangelical Alliance, the Women's Christian Temperance Union, the situation in Turkey in 1896 and the missionaries there, the YMCA, and various divinity schools and seminaries. This series also contains correspondence between Strong's daughters Elsie and Margery to those involved with his biography, including publishers, scholars, and universities.
Burke Library record group:
Union Theological Seminary Archives: UTS 1, papers of faculty and students
Arrangement
This collection is arranged in three series: Series 1: Biography drafts; Series 1A: Personal papers; and Series 2: Correspondence.
- Series 1: Biography drafts, 1855 -- 1916
- Series 1A: Personal papers, circa 1855 -- 1954
- Series 2: Correspondence, 1883 -- 1969
Using the Collection
Conditions Governing Access
This collectin is open for research.
The following boxes are located offsite: entire collection. Please note that requests for use of boxes held in offsite storage must be made three business days in advance.
Conditions Governing Use
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.
Preferred Citation
Item description, UTS1: Josiah Strong papers, series #, box #, folder #, The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.
Immediate Source of Acquisition
The exact provenance of this collection is unknown. Papers may have benn given to Union Library by Strong's daughters beginning in the 1930s.
About the Finding Aid / Processing Information
Columbia University Libraries, Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary
Processing Information
Correspondence and draft notes of biography were cataloged by Lynn A. Grove on 1988-07-14. Metal clips and staples were removed from materials and folded items were flattened. Materials were placed in new acid-free folders and boxes. Acidic items were separated from one another by interleaving with acid-free paper as needed. The finding aid was created by Ruth Cameron in 2012, updated in 2015 by Brigette C. Kamsler and Margaret Kaczorowski with the support of the Henry Luce Foundation, and edited by Leah Edelman in 2024. A detailed inventory was also created by Margaret Kaczorowski; to find out more about what was included in this inventory, please contact Burke Library staff.
Revision Description
2024-06-26 PDF converted to EAD and description updated by Leah Edelman.
Biographical / Historical
Josiah Strong was born January 19, 1847 in Naperville, Illinois. He was a descendant of Elder John Strong, one of the early settlers in 17th century Puritan Massachusetts. He spent the remainder of his childhood in Naperville and experienced an evangelical conversion at the First Congregational Church as a young teen. Afterward he attended Western Reserve College; following graduation in 1869, he enrolled at Lane Theological Seminary in Cincinnati and was ordained Minister. Not long after ending his studies at Lane in 1871, he married Alice Bisbee of Chardon, Ohio. Rev. Strong spent some time as Pastor of a home missionary church in Cheyenne, Wyoming. From 1877-1883, Rev. Strong was Pastor of the First Congregational Church of Sandusky, Ohio. It was there that he became aware of the major social problems within America and what inspired him to eventually become involved with the Social Gospel movement. This was a Protestant Christian intellectual movement that was most prominent in the early 20th century United States and Canada. The movement applied Christian ethics to social problems, especially issues of social justice such as economic inequality, poverty, alcoholism, crime, racial tensions, slums, unclean environment, child labor, inadequate labor unions, poor schools, and the danger of war. Beginning in 1885, Strong published several books that dealt with religious solutions for social and economic problems, and emphasized interdenominational cooperation to achieve these social goals. Among his most widely read and influential published works are: Our Country: Its Possible Future and Present Crisis, New Era, The Twentieth Century City, The Times and Young Men, Religious Movements for Social Betterment, and The Challenge of the City. Strong served as General Secretary of the Evangelical Alliance for the United States from 1886-1898, a coalition of Protestant missionary groups. In reaction to the Evangelical Alliance's lack of involvement in what he saw as an urgent need to deal with social problems in late 19th century USA, he founded the League for Social Service in 1898, which in 1902 was re-named the American Institute of Social Service, an organization to "promote social and industrial betterment." Strong edited its magazine, The Gospel of the Kingdom. He is considered a leader of the Third Great Awakening, a hypothetical historical period proposed by William G. McLoughlin that was marked by religious activism in American history and spans the late 1850s to the early 20th century. Strong had three daughters named Mary, Elsie, and Margery, and one son, Howard. Mary died tragically in 1894. Strong appears to have been close to his children, as evident in his correspondence with his daughters in the collection. Strong died on April 28, 1916.
Subject Headings
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