Identity elements
Reference code
Name and location of repository
Level of description
Title
Date(s)
- 1933-1942 (Creation)
Extent
0.18 cubic feet
Name of creator
Biographical history
William Coleman Bitting (1887-1954) was the son of the Rev. William Coleman Bitting, a Baptist minister, and Anna Mary Biedler. He was an investment broker who specialized in church bonds and was head of the Bitting and Company brokerage firm. He was involved in the 1934 controversy of defaulted bonds by the Women's Home Missionary Society of the Southern California Conference of the Methodist Episcopal Church. Many of the published articles and letters he wrote were distinctly anti-Methodist and strongly against the spending of investors' money on foreign missions. In other Methodist financial matters, Bitting and Company sued White Cross Hospital Association of the Ohio Conference and the St. Louis Methodist Episcopal Annual Conference in 1934.
Content and structure elements
Scope and content
The collection contains newspaper clippings, correspondences, and reports which primarily document the 1934 defaulted bonds controversy. The material is extremely anti-Methodist.
System of arrangement
This collection is arranged by record type and then chronologically within the folders.
Conditions of access and use elements
Conditions governing access
There are no restrictions regarding this collection.
Physical access
Technical access
Conditions governing reproduction
Detailed use restrictions relating to our collections can be requested from the office of the archivist at the General Commission on Archives and History. Photocopying is handled by the staff and may be limited in certain instances. Before using any material for publication from this collection a formal request for permission to publish is expected and required.
Languages of the material
- English
Scripts of the material
Language and script notes
Finding aids
Acquisition and appraisal elements
Custodial history
Immediate source of acquisition
Appraisal, destruction and scheduling information
Accruals
Related materials elements
Existence and location of originals
Existence and location of copies
Related archival materials
Related descriptions
Notes element
General note
The purpose of this finding aid is to help you understand the nature of this collection and to assist you in the retrieval of material from this collection. The following pages contain a brief biographical history of the person, or persons, who created or collected these papers, followed by a general description of the collection in the scope and content note. If more detailed information is warranted then series descriptions also appear. The container listing appears last and is the listing of material in each box, or container, of this collection. To request material you need to turn to the container listing section. It is essentially a listing of file folders, or artifact items, in the collection. Each folder, or item, has a call number associated with it. Each folder also lists the inclusive dates of the material in the folder. On the material request form list both the call number and the folder, or item, title. Use a different line for each folder, or item, requested. When your request sheet is complete, or full, bring it to the archivist and the material will be retrieved.
General note
When citing material from this collection please use the following format: Direct reference to the item or its file folder, William Coleman Bitting, Jr. Collection, United Methodist Church Archives - GCAH, Madison, New Jersey. Do not make use of the item's call number as that is not a stable descriptor.
Specialized notes
Alternative identifier(s)
Description control element
Rules or conventions
Sources used
Archivist's note
Prepared by Sofia Novozilova, Student Assistant and Mark C. Shenise, Associate Archivist