Collection context
Summary
- Creator:
- Missionary Research Library (New York, N.Y.)
- Abstract:
- This collection contains color and black and white lantern slides compiled by the Missionary Research Library, 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.
- Extent:
- 5.50 linear feet and 5.50 linear feet; 7 boxes
- Language:
- English .
- Preferred citation:
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.
Background
- Scope and Content:
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.
- Biographical / Historical:
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.
- Acquisition information:
- 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.
- Custodial history:
For detailed descriptions of slides, please consult the legacy spreadsheet by contacting Burke staff.
- Processing information:
Slides processed and spreadsheet created by Brigette Kamsler in 2011. The finding aid was created by Leah Edelman in 2023.
- Arrangement:
This collection is arranged in one numerical series.
- Rules or conventions:
- Describing Archives: A Content Standard
Indexed Terms
- Subjects:
- Lantern slides
- Places:
- China -- Pictorial works
Access
- RESTRICTIONS:
-
This collection is open for research.
Onsite storage.
Lantern slides are very fragile. Please handle with care.
- TERMS OF ACCESS:
-
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, MRL6: Missionary Research Library collection of lantern slides, box #, The Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary, Columbia University in the City of New York.
- LOCATION OF THIS COLLECTION:
- CONTACT:
-
(212) 851-5606burke@library.columbia.edu