Collections : [Yale University -Divinity School Library]

Correspondence and writings document the life and work of Dwight Rugh, his wife Winifred and their daughter Betty Jean during their service in China 1930-1951. The Rughs taught and did administrative work for the Yale-in-China Association at Yali Middle School, in Hunan Province. Winifred also taught at Shanghai American School, where Betty Jean attended for several years. Dwight Rugh was the last representative of the Yale-China Association to leave China in 1951, his application for an exit permit having been delayed for several months.

These papers document the work of various student Christian movements from the 1950s through the 1990s and the activities of the World Student Christian Federation Trustees, particularly in preparation for the WSCF Centennial and the Women's History Project. Ruth M. Harris was a leader in United Methodist and ecumenical student Christian work.

The Ruth Rouse papers, 1897-1957, consist of Rouse's personal accounts of her international work with the Student Volunteer Movement (SVM), World Student Christian Federation (WSCF), and the Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA), as well as her research files on the history of global ecumenism.

The papers consist primarily of manuscript sermons dating from 1877 to 1928. Samuel Clarke Bushnell (1852-1928), a Yale Divinity School graduate, was a Congregational minister in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Sermons, writings, notes, teaching materials, and personal items provide substantive documentation of the life and work of Dr. Samuel Moss Carter, an early African American graduate of the Yale Divinity School, who was a Baptist pastor and professor of Church History, primarily in Virginia.

This collection documents Samuel Slie's work with numerous organizations involved in student Christian work, ecumenical issues, and social justice, particularly in New Haven and New England. The papers complement organizational archives held at the Yale Divinity School Library, including the archives of the Student Christian Movement in New England, University Christian Movement, United Ministries in Higher Education, and National Campus Ministry Association. Samuel Slie, a Yale Divinity School graduate, was involved in religious work with college and university students in New England and served as Associate University Pastor at Yale.

Extensive correspondence, reports, and an autobiography document the work of Sanford Richardson, missionary among the Armenians in Ottoman Turkey from 1857 to 1879, serving under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions.

This collection provides valuable collected research files on a variety of subjects, including: missionary children, the Canton (Guangzhou) YMCA, True Light Middle School, women in China, Lingnan University, the Hmong (Miao) people, and the Presbyterian Mission Home (Cameron House) in San Francisco. The collection also contains documentation related to the life and work of Sarah Refo Mason and her parents, Henry and Sarah F. Refo. Sarah Refo Mason (1930-2002), the child of missionaries to China, graduated from the Shanghai American School and the College of Wooster. She received a doctorate in history from Northern Illinois University in 1978. Her dissertation research related to the children of missionaries and she also engaged in research projects related to Chinese history, women's history, Asian American history, and oral history. She taught at U.S. schools and at Zhongshan University in Guangzhou, PRC.

The Sewanee Controversy Papers include the official documents surrounding the event, as well as personal correspondence and collected material. From 1952 to 1954 there was great controversy over the admission policies of the School of Theology at the University of the South at Sewanee, an Episcopal Seminary. On June 6, 1952, the Board of Trustees rejected a request by the Synod of the Fourth Province to "open the existing seminaries in the South to students of all races." The Board of Trustees concluded that "the admission of Negroes, or men of any other race...is inadvisable." This resolution sparked a flurry of responses, most notably the resignation of eight faculty members in protest. In June 1953, the Board of Trustees voted to change its policy.

During the WWII years 1941-1945, however, various spin-offs of SAS were organized by former teachers that kept the school going (under different names), including a school established in a Japanese internment camp. A final spin-off, the Private America School, continued the basic SAS curriculum until 1950 when the Communist government forced the school's closure. The Shanghai American School (SAS) was founded in 1912 for the purpose of educating the children of American missionaries, businessmen, and professionals. It was the culmination of years of work by the American community to create a school in Shanghai that would prepare its children to enter American colleges and universities. The school maintained operations until 1941 when most members of the American community were evacuated due to political tensions between Japan and the United States prior to Pearl Harbor. In 1946, after World War II, SAS was reorganized and maintained operations through commencement 1949 when the Chinese Communist army occupied Shanghai. A period of volatile political and economic conditions ensued, causing the school to close once again.