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.

The Papers of John Torok consist primarily of correspondence with some legal or ecclesiastical documents. Torok’s correspondence centers largely on his own efforts to serve as an ordained person in the U.S. Episcopal Church. The material has value to understanding the complexity in ecumenical relationships in the inter-war period. The various legal, diplomatic, medical, and academic documents, including depositions, transcripts of an interrogation that Torok received at the hands of the Economic Warfare division in 1942, and the confession of William Emhardt of the National Council regarding his attempt to undermine Torok in 1924.

Torok’s writings in this collection are primarily ecclesiastical and relate to Count Michael Karolyi, who was briefly the leader of the First Hungarian People’s Republic, 1918-1919. Torok had served under him in the State Department.

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.