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This archive documents the records created by John Shelby Spong as he conducted research for an unfinished biography of former Presiding Bishop John Elbridge Hines, whom Spong admired for his courageous civil rights activism. Included are audio interviews recorded with and about Hines between 1974 and 1975, fifty-three of which have been digitized by the Archives. Research materials related to Spong’s planning and execution of the project, as well as his gathered documentation on the various stages of Hines’ ministry, round out the collection.

This collection provides a high level overview of the work of the Social Welfare Officer, Woodrow W. Carter, Sr., with particular emphasis on his work to coordinate interest across the Church in addressing salient and time-sensitive social concerns. The records bridge the later years of the Christian Social Relations Department but speak mostly to the experimental and investigative strategy of the national church bureaucracy in the 1970s. By that decade, the remnant departmental boundaries of the National Council's Domestic Mission portfolio had given way to amorphous structures that allowed executive officials more flexibility in responding to the perceived needs of the day. The central mission personnel became known as the mission “Program staff” that carried out the work of Executive Council under the direction of the Presiding Bishop. The records serve to demonstrate the last years in which the national Church’s ministry specialists served the governing Council as program staff officers and executives were appointed by and served at the behest of the chief executive officer, a title that was added to the office of the Presiding Bishop.

This collection consists of the Committee’s records as kept by Dr. Charles Taylor, the director of the study, and includes official minutes and reports, correspondence, data on seminaries, and planning and working documents of the Committee. Of note are copies of Nathan M. Pusey’s 1966 Report of the Special Committee titled “Ministry for Tomorrow,” which helped inform the study of theological education undertaken by the Committee and directed by Charles Taylor. Taylor’s work from 1957 to 1967 is well documented and there is correspondence from his time as the director of the American Association of Theological Schools from 1957. Correspondence and reports were generated and collected before, during, and after visits to a number of seminary and theological schools, including Berkeley Divinity School, Episcopal Theological Seminary, and Sewanee.

The papers of Peter Gray Sears document his life and career as a southern priest at the end of the 19th century and his move to the rapidly growing city of Houston, Texas at the beginning of the 20th century. The majority of the collection is correspondence between Sears and his friends and colleagues, including Bishop Hugh Miller Thompson and Bishop George Herbert Kinsolving. There are also letters to and from family members, including his son Claudius Wistar Sears and his wife. Also included are sermons dating from the early 1900s preached in various churches in Mississippi and Texas.

Bishop Scarlett's papers reflect his keen sense of social activism and interest in current events. Almost half the papers in this record group consists of Scarlett's sermons and addresses. Personal writings, correspondence, committee and commission records, photographs, scrapbooks, and ephemera round out the collection.

This collection consists primarily of administrative records and publications of the Rural Workers Fellowship. The administrative records include materials relating to governance and membership of the Fellowship, information about the Fellowship’s publications (including a history of the publication Crossroads), and correspondence about the Wilbur Cochel Memorial Library. Publications include the Fellowship’s official organ The Rural Messenger, 1927-1943; Crossroads, 1943-1962; and Crossroads Newsletter, 1962-2010. The run of Crossroads Newsletter is nearly complete, although it ends with the August 2010 issue. The records also include a run (with index) of a related publications distributed as an interdenominational resource entitled Christian Rural Fellowship Bulletin, which was an influential voice documenting Episcopal and other twentieth-century rural ministry.

The collection comprises correspondence, minutes, surveys, reports, financial records, printed materials, photographic materials, audio-visual materials, maps, and charts dating from 1939 to 1978. The photographic materials include two cubic feet of prints and negatives and more than two thousand slides, which often topically parallel other records found in the collection.

Malcolm Riker’s archive is made up of photographic slides from his many trips to Europe, focusing on historic sites, churches, and picturesque landscapes. This collection of transparency slide images documents Malcolm Riker’s ministry of education, his love of history, and interest in travel.

This collection comprises the personal papers of the Rt. Rev. Walter Righter, from early adulthood through his retirement, with writings added up to the year 2009. Included are: records collected by Righter before, during, and after his trial for heresy; materials relating to his ministerial career; and family history and genealogy research.

The records of the Retiring Fund for Deaconesses (RFD) comprise correspondence, minutes, printed material, financial documents, and reports that originated primarily in the files of Margaret Jackson, who served as the Secretary (1967-1982) and as a member of the Board of Directors (1982-1984). The correspondence reflects the devotion of women nurturing a community of former colleagues, a considerable portion of which documents the deaconesses’ position on the ordination of women as deacons and priests.

The Quin Papers include over 700 sermons, a complete set of pocket diaries, scrapbooks, ledgers documenting clergy received and transferred, ordinations, and postulants in the Diocese of Texas, letters of ordination, printed material, appreciations, correspondence and other materials pertaining to Bishop Quin. Also included is a notebook belonging to Mrs. Hortense Quin from the 1946 Triennial meeting and typescript notes for addresses she wrote regarding those meetings.

The Papers of Katharine Putnam document segments of her work as a deaconess stationed in China in the decades leading up to the Communist revolution in the late 1940s. The correspondence and diaries present limited details of Putnam’s life with the most documentation dating from World War II. Photographs comprise the bulk of the collection, most of which are related to the China Mission with approximately one fifth being cultural scenes of China. Also included are several liturgies written in Chinese as well as an album of photos and inscriptions that was created as a memento to Putnam upon her departure from China in 1950.

This collection consists of trial records related to The Diocese of Newark vs George Gaines Swanson, as appealed to the Court of Review of Province II in 1989-1990. The official record on appeal is bound in four volumes, with a table of contents in the first volume. Records in these volumes include the original presentment, related correspondence, motions and court orders, transcripts of court proceedings, exhibits, and the notice of appeal. Notable among the exhibits are correspondence between Swanson and John Shelby Spong, and a transcript of Swanson's version of events leading up to the appeal. Records of the appeal proceedings are unbound and include the Appellant's Brief on Appeal, the Appellant's Reply Brief, the Decision of the Court of Review and a transcript of telephone conversations between Swanson and Denise Haines, the Archdeacon of Urban Ministry for the Diocese of Newark.

These records primarily document Dr. Clifford P. Morehouse's six-year tenure as President of the House of Deputies (1961-1967) and include correspondence and General Convention meeting materials. A smaller group of materials including correspondence and reports documenting Morehouse’s involvement as a member of Executive Council rounds out the collection.