Assignments in the Archives
Exercise # 1, Using different types of document
Purpose of Exercise: To introduce students to the different formats of documents available in the Archives and to give them a little experience using them; to have think about the relationship between primary and secondary documents.
Description of Exercise:
00:00-00:10 Archivist explains what the students will be doing
00:10-00:30 Each student is given the attached assignment sheet to which is attached one of the six different sheets, each of which lists examples of a different document types (personal papers, organizational records, oral histories, photos, films and videos, miscellaneous). The students look through their materials, trying to determine who created them, the context of their creation, the type of research they might be used for, the strength and weaknesses of the materials as sources of information.
00:30-00:50 Each student goes into the Graham Center Library and finds a secondary source that relates in some way to the document he or she has been studying, as collaboration (or contradiction) of these materials or useful background to understanding them. The student can chose a book or periodical or dissertation. He or she jots down the bibliographic information on the secondary source selected and brings it back to the reading room.
00:50-01:10 Students volunteer or are selected to individually report on their documents. Interacting informally with the archivist. They tell what type if document it is, describe its contents briefly, comment on its strengths and weaknesses, describe what kind of research the document might be used for, describe the secondary source they selected.
Materials needed: Tape recorders, equipment for viewing films and videos, gloves, assignment sheet, (for photos), the documents that are listed on the following pages.
NOTE: This works best with a small class, no bigger than 10.
Classed used with: Christianity in China (Brent Fulton), 10 students. 9/15/98
[Sheet given to students]
The Archives has a great deal of material on China in its collections, most of which relate to foreign missions in China during the twentieth century. The purpose of this assignment is to give you some personal experience with using and evacuating these documents and to give you a better idea of the different types of documents.
1. You will be given a sheet describing a particular type of document in the Archives and listing several specific examples. You will pick one of those examples and study them for the next twenty minutes, preparing to answer these questions:
A. What are the strengths and weaknesses of these particular type of documents? What can and can't they tell you? What kinds of information are they most likely to contain? How would you determine their reliability?
B. Suggest several topics in the history of Chinese Christianity for which the documents you studied could be used as source material.
2. After twenty minutes have passed, you will be sent out into the Graham Center Library to bring back a supporting secondary source. So, for example, if you are looking at a the letters of a missionary who was a missionary in northwest China in 1930s, you might find a biography of that missionary or a history of his or her mission board for that period or the periodical for the mission board for that period or a history of China or the Sino-Japanese conflict or some material deals with a specific topic in China during that time period. with which his letters were much concerned, such as medical missions or foot binding, etc. You can either check the material out of the Library and bring it back to the Archives Reading Room or write down all the necessary bibliographic information and bring that back with you to the Reading Room.
3. Fir the last fifteen minutes or so of class, individuals will report on the particular set of documents they worked with - describing the contents of the documents, answering the questions in section 1 above and describing the supporting secondary source they selected.
Documents to be used in the assignment for Professor Fulton's class
A. Personal papers (letters, diaries), prayer letters
CN 542 - Sarah Troyer Young. Young was a missionary in China from 1896-1900. The Archives has dozens of her letters to her sisters in the United States, as well as a diary she kept. This has to be used on the Web in the Reading Room
188-1-9, 1-18. Collection 188. Papers of Jonathan and Rosalind Goforth. They were Canadian missionaries in China, with the Presbyterian board, then as independent, from 1888-1934. The files selected include their letters and a year of Jonathan's journal.
SC75. Ephemera of Charles Fairclough. His 1928 prayer letter includes his reelections on events he witnessed, such as the Hundred Days of Reform, the Boxer rebellion of 1900, are touched on.
187-1-2,3,6 Papers of Eleanor Ruth Elliott. The particular files selected are those of her father, a colporteur in China, which include prayer letters and other materials describing the 1911 revolution and other events.
B. Organizational records
46-47-2,3; 53-8. Records of the Lausanne Committee for World Evangelization. Includes files from the 1980 Consultation on World Evangelization held in Thailand in 1980, at which methods for Chinese evangelism were discussed.
215-1-17, 2-44, 4-20,21; 5-16. Records of Overseas Missionary Fellowship (formerly known as China Inland Mission. Files of the China Director and council of the mission, who oversaw the mission in China, a directory of missionaries
379-4-1 to 5. Records of Woman's Union Missionary Society. The WUMS (founded in 1860) worked in India, Japan and China. These files deal with their educational and medical work in China between 1919 and 1951.
406-22-5, 10, 11; 23-1, 50-12, 13. Records of SEND International. Includes reports and records of consultations on methods of reaching Chinese people in Chinese and in other parts of the world.
C. Oral histories
145. Microfilm. Claremont College China Missionary Interviews. Transcripts of oral history interviews with dozens of missionaries of a variety of Protestant denominations about their work in China during the twentieth century.
187 T3, T4. Interview of Eleanor Ruth Elliot. Elliot was a CIM missionary in China and the Philippines from 1930 to 1958. On these tapes she discusses experiences in China and the Philippines and the Sino-Japanese War's effect on mission work.
421-T4. Interview with Arthur Glasser. Glasser was a missionary to China with CIM, later U.S. director of the mission and a writer and education. Topics on this tape include influence of World War II on American missions, the Glassers' work in China for China Inland Mission, the Communist revolution in China.
314 T2. Interview with Martha Philips. Philips was a missionary with CIM. Topics discussed on the tape include work and life at Chefoo School, and the staff and students' capture and internment by the Japanese.
206 T1 Interview with John Chin (Chin Chung-An). Chin was a doctor, pastor and teacher in China and Taiwan. Topics discussed on this tape include Chin's youth and medical education in China, the Japanese occupation, and China Inland Mission, work in CIM and Presbyterian hospitals, war conditions and relocation in Taiwan, founding of a Lutheran Seminary and churches, and other topics.
D. Films and Videos
225-V12. From Confucius To Christ. Personal testimony of Dr. Leland Wang, president of the Chinese Foreign Missionary Union. N.d. Black and white, 30 minutes.
341-V1. 3/4" u-matic copy of five home movies filmed by the Plymire family of their work in Tibet. Includes scenes of travel, the landscape, baptism, the Buddhist religion as practiced in Tibet. Silent. Frequent captions. Sections in color, other sections in black and white. 60 minutes. Ca. 1930s-1940s
215 -F2. Hope for China (30 minutes) 1949. Scenes of life in China, description of the missions' policies and its work in china among Chinese and non-Chinese people, with many comments upon and scenes of Chinese culture, religions, economy and geography. Also scenes of Tibetan Buddhism. There are also some references to the civil war and the increasing power of Communism and a statement that the mission will stay in China and a description of the indigenous church.
Accession 19-17. Video copy of a home movie J. Edwin made during his trip to China in 1938-39
E. Photographs
Photo File: Missions-China A miscellany of photos, all black and white and most from the twentieth century, from many different collections in the Archives, of missionary activity in China
Photo File: OMF-China-2 Hundreds of photos of scenes from China Inland Mission's work in China, including scenes of the evacuation of Chongqing, Tibet, Chefoo, scenes of the Sino-Japanese war. 1915-1950
Photo album - OMF III. Hundreds of b/w photos, many with negatives attached. The album is labeled "Silver Album" and has silver covers and black pages. Goes with OMF - IV. In the first half of the album, each image is number and then photos are divided into sections. Many have captions. In the later half, most images neither numbered or captions. Many, many photos are missing. This scrapbook appears to have been some kind of photo resource for the mission, perhaps for use in publications. Contains Sections labeled E through I, showing the mission's work in Wuhn, Kanchang, Changsha, Hunan province, Kumming, Yunnan province, Kiehkow, Sichuan province, and Shanghai, among other places. Pictures of schools, churches, evangelists, hospitals, missionaries, orphanages, InterVarsity work (most of these are missing), Chefoo school, and many scenes of Chinese geography and life. Ca. 1947.
Photo Album - Plymire IV. Victor Plymire was a missionary to northwest China and Tibet. Album of 234 black and white photographs taken by Plymire. Includes scenes of hunting, animal life, Lhasa, the Dalai Lama and his entourage, crime and punishment, mountain climbing, nomad life, river travel, W. E. Simpson, scenes from Plymire's 1927-1928 expedition. Many photos have captions by Plymire in white ink. Ca. 1926-1930.
F. Miscellaneous
80-1. Miriam J. Toop Dunn was a CIM missionary. This collection consists of the manuscript of her autobiography, written in the late 1970s.
SC61. This booklet was presented to Blanchett shortly after his arrival in Pakhoi by author/artist Margery Stuart, a friend stranded in Pakhoi by a winter storm. It contains nine water color sketches illustrating a three-verse limerick written in English but deceptively lettered in a stylistic Chinese script. In the poem, "The Cannibal Queen of Pakhoi," we are introduced to a fanciful world--there were in fact no cannibals in Pakhoi, which was a modern city--where a missionary (Blanchett) and a bishop (the Rt. Rev. G. H. Lander, bishop of Hong Kong, 1906-1920) are ambushed by hungry natives.
215-T5. Ian Anderson, who made this tape probably between 1979 and 1980, describes how Christian workers used songs and posters in village evangelism work in China and Taiwan in the 1940s and 1950s. He sings several songs in Chinese and provides not a literal translation but a general description of the lyrics. The songs deal with sin, salvation, Christian life, and life after death.
318-2-6,8. L. Nelson Bell was a Presbyterian medical missionary at Tsingkiangpu (Pinyin romanization: Qingjiangpu) in the province of Kiangsu (Pinyin romanization: Jiangsu), China. These files consist of some of his patient files and information on the hospital.
36-T259,T1711. Gospel Recordings produces short audio tape and phonograph record programs presented by indigenous speakers in hundreds of languages. These two tapes are in Mandarin.
188-2-10. Jonathan Goforth was a Presbyterian missionary in China during the 1900 Boxer rebellion. This notebook contains a handwritten manuscript, "Who Caused the Boxer Rebellion,"apparently for a magazine article or for a report to his church written by Goforth in 1901.
[10/98]