Collections : [Yale University -Divinity School Library]

The Council of Church Boards of Education was a Protestant ecumenical organization created in 1911. The organization was made up of boards of education from several Protestant denominations. The intent of the organization was to promote the cause of religious education in institutions of higher education.

The archives include minutes and financial information for the Council for Higher Education Ministries' work groups: the Council for Ecumenical Student Christian Ministry, Higher Education Ministries Arena, and United Ministries in Higher Education.

These archives constitute the data, drafts, reports, and related material that resulted in the two volume report of the Danforth Study of Campus Ministries, The Church, the University, and Social Policy, which was published by Wesleyan University Press in 1969. The Danforth Study of Campus Ministries, sponsored by the Danforth Foundation beginning in 1963, was directed by Kenneth Underwood. Through questionnaires, studies, and analysis, the project documented the state of religious awareness and commitment on American university and college campuses.

Substantive letters refer to the social and political scene in the Chengdu (Chengtu) area, as well as providing a thorough account of the educational mission work of the Dyes at West China Union University. The papers include unique documentation of patterns and designs used in West China latticework, woven belts, and pottery. Drawings of hundreds of patterns and notes regarding their origin and symbolism are included. Daniel Sheets Dye taught academic courses at West China Union University in Chengdu, Sichuan (Chengtu, Szechuan Province), from 1910 to 1949, serving under the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society. As an avocation Dye recorded and analyzed window lattice and woven belt patterns, which often had swastika designs, throughout West China. Jane Balderston went to West China in 1915, serving under the Friends Foreign Mission Association of Great Britain and Ireland. After her marriage to Daniel Dye in 191, she taught mathematics and education courses at Woman's Normal School in Chengdu (Chengtu) and West China Union University Normal School.

Letters and writings document the life and work of Daniel Webster Crofts, an American missionary serving under the China Inland Mission, primarily in Guizhou Province, China from 1895 to 1944. Detailed letters written to the Crofts children describe the evangelization and literature distribution work of Crofts and his first wife Verna Hammarén Crofts and his second wife Mabel Harlow Crofts, as well as their way of life in a rural area beset by famine, and political disruption.

Correspondence, sermons, lectures, writings, reports, slides, and collected material document the life and work of David M. Stowe, who was a top level executive for the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, the United Church Board for World Ministries, and the National Council of Church Division of Overseas Ministries. The collection includes extensive documentation of the history of the ABCFM and UCBWM that Stowe compiled in preparation for writing a history of the Boards.

Correspondence, writings, collected material, and biographical records provide valuable documentation of Beach's Yale education, his work with the YMCA in France during World War I, his ministry, his contributions to the Congregational denomination, and the work of the Connecticut Civil Rights Commission. David Nelson Beach, Jr. (1894-1990) was a clergyman in New England and Minnesota, including at First Church of Christ (Center Church) in New Haven from 1943 to 1960. He served on the Connecticut Civil Rights Commission from 1948 to 1960 and played an influential role in the denominational merger that created the United Church of Christ in 1957.

Dean and Fanny Wickes were missionaries serving in Shandong from 1912 to 1934 under the North China Mission of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions. Correspondence, writings, photographs, and collected material document the life and work of these missionaries who were engaged in educational and evangelistic work.

The bulk of this collection consists of research files compiled by Donald MacInnis, a prominent historian of missions in China. Correspondence, writings, collected material, and photographs gathered by MacInnis for his book China Chronicles from a Lost Time: The Min River Journals provide extensive documentation of Christian missions in Fujian province. The collection also includes correspondence, writings, and biographical documentation of MacInnis, who was a missionary in China and Taiwan and director of the China Program of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A., the Midwest China Center, and the Maryknoll China Research Program.

Letters, writings, and memorabilia document Macintosh's life and work. Douglas Clyde Macintosh was Professor of Theology at Yale from 1909 to 1942.