The collection includes clippings that pertain mainly to the union of the Methodist Church, a eulogy for Lawson, program for "Judge Lawson Day" at the Liberty Methodist Church, opinions of the Court of Appeals, court decisions, and an original signed copy of the opinion of the Judicial Council of the Methodist Episcopal Church South on the matter of the unification of Methodism. The collection also includes several booklets and periodicals; an October 1932 edition of the newspaper Christian Standard, Volume 7 of The Methodist Layman for 1930, a June 1956 edition of the Missouri Methodist, a 1939 edition of the Christian Advocate and several other booklets discussing Methodism. There are many letters, to and from Martin E. Lawson, photographs, a biography of the judge and ephemera concerning the fifth and sixth Ecumenical Conferences.
Sans titreThe Dora Amelia Wagner Papers contain graduate certificates as well as documents from Wagner’s time spent in Japan. Three certificates of degree are enclosed from Kingman High School in Kansas, Northwestern University in Evanston-Chicago, and Baker University in Kansas. A letter documenting her experience in Japan in 1936, including meeting Emperor Hirohito, a newspaper from Iai Jo Gakko Girls’ School in Hakodate chronicling Helen Keller’s visit to the school amongst other school activities, and a photograph of the Emperor in his car, are also included in the collection. Of the three large documents with currently unknown Japanese characters, one appears to be a Testimonial of Gratitude to Miss Wagner from the mayor of Hakodate, and one is the “Fifth Order of Sacred Treasure,” granted by Emperor Hirohito.
Sans titreThe largest element of the collection consists of Methodist newspapers from Estonia, Latvia and Russia. The time span for these periodicals range from 1909 to 1940. Here the researcher will find a written record of the church's main activities in these specific geographic areas. Many of the periodicals are not in English but their native tongues. There are, however, some English language documents with the most important being the index for the Russian Christian Advocate. General administration records are the next section within the collection. Various minutes make up the bulk of these records. Other documents include histories of the areas, one local church set of records, an Estonian Book of Discipline (1927), and other ephemera. One of the unique aspects of this collection is Bishop Nuelsen's records while serving as bishop for the Baltic-Russia area. These records were separated out from the general administrative records in order to highlight Nuelsen's work for these annual conferences during the turbulent times they both found themselves in. Most of the documents found here are photocopies. The orginal records can be found at various institutions in the Russian-Baltic region.
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