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The Congregational Church Records of Record Group 56 are an open collection of primarily printed material dating from approximately 1709-1983. Records of various official bodies are encompassed by the record group as it documents churches of Congregational polity individually and in cooperation on local, state, national and international levels.

The papers document various aspects of the lives of brothers David Nelson Beach and Harlan Page Beach, including their student days at Yale (1868-1878), Harlan's work in North China (1883-1890), and David's work as a clergyman and with the Anti-Saloon League while in Cambridge, Minneapolis and Denver. David Nelson Beach, 1848-1926, was a prominent Congregational clergyman in Cambridge, Massachusetts, Minneapolis, Minnesota and Denver, Colorado and was active in temperance reform. He was president of Bangor Theological Seminary from 1903-1921. Harlan Page Beach, 1854-1933, was a missionary to China under the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) from 1883-1890. He was professor of missions at Yale Divinity School from 1905-1921 and librarian of Yale's Day Missions Library from 1911-1925.

The collection includes material from more than 170 organizations, as well as topically arranged materials. This open collection of primarily printed material centers on a core of pamphlets, reprints and notes donated to the Divinity Library by Professors Roland H. Bainton and Kenneth Scott Latourette and by Yale alumni Dana Dawson (MA 1942), Ernest Lefever (BD 1945) and Vernon H. Holloway (BD 1936, PhD 1949).

The collection is valuable for the documentation it provides concerning a New Haven area clergy family during the period 1800 to 1880. Daily events and family relationships are revealed in substantive family correspondence. Of particular interest are Samuel Dutton's notebooks from his student days at Yale. The bulk of the collection is comprised of manuscript sermons written by Aaron and Samuel Dutton during their pastorates in Guilford and New Haven. These sermons touch on topics such as slavery, the Civil War, "Millerism", temperance and immigration. The sermons span the careers of both Duttons, who were known for their abolitionist stances, and thus provide an opportunity for tracing the development of their thought over a number of years. Aaron Dutton was born in Watertown, Connecticut on May 21, 1780. He served as minister of the First Congregational Church in Guilford, Connecticut from 1806 until 1842, at which time he resigned due to the dissension in the congregation regarding his abolitionist stance. In 1843, he went to Iowa in service of the American Home Missionary Society. He died in New Haven in 1849. His son, Samuel William Southmayd Dutton was born in Guilford, Connecticut on March 14, 1814. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts degree from Yale in 1833, he held positions as teacher, tutor, rector, minister (North Church, New Haven, Connecticut), publisher and editor. He was a noted champion of the antislavery cause. He died in Millbury, Massachusetts in 1866.

The Collection includes pamphlets, brochures, typescripts, booklets, comic books, posters, cartoons, letters, memoranda, offprints, etc., documenting various aspects of social issues in America and throughout the world during the mid-twentieth century.

These records relate to the Religion in Higher Education program at Yale. Yale was an important center for Masters and Doctoral level studies in this field during the mid- twentieth century.

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.

This collection contains documentation of schools for missionary children in China and the alumni associations of the schools. Records of the Kuling American School, North China American School, and Peking American School are included in this record group. For documentation of the Shanghai American School and American School Kikungshan, see separate record groups, RG 132 and RG 164.

The collection includes more than 25,000 missionary postcards. These postcards were produced by mission sending agencies and distributed throughout Europe and America with the intent of promoting support for the missions' work and providing information about non-Western peoples and customs.

The Miscellaneous Personal Papers record group is an open collection consisting of the correspondence, diaries, writings and/or other papers and memorabilia of various individuals. This collection contains papers of individuals who were Yale faculty members, alumni/ae, clergy, ecumenical workers, or missionaries in areas other than China.