This collection contains extensive organizational materials for over 100 years of its operation, particularly 1867 through the 1960s. It is particularly strong in the area of corporate minutes and reports, financial history, membership, publications, and grant awards. There is also a fine set of recorded sermons that may have been created as exemplars for educational purposes.

From 1945 to 1977 Roanridge Training and Conference Center in Missouri was the primary center of operation for the Division of Town and Country within the Home Department, although the two entities were structurally distinct. The Division’s records contain administrative and program files, conference materials, reports generated by the Division (often in consultation with Roanridge or with persons affiliated with the National Council’s Unit of Research and Field Study), and resource materials formerly housed in the Roanridge Library. Of particular interest in the latter series is a scrapbook collected by Edna Eastwood on the Church’s early ministry to the “isolated,” and a set of surveys generated by the Unit of Research and Field Study. Also present are subject files and correspondence documenting field visits and consultations to rural areas throughout the country.

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 content of the recordings of the Pacific Basin Conference include speakers, presenters, plenary sessions, reports, discussions, and question and answer sessions. Although some speakers on the recordings are unidentified, the identified conference speakers and presenters include:

Dr. Bernard Cooke, professor at Holy Cross College, Worcester, Massachusetts and Roman Catholic scholar
Rev. George C. Harris, Episcopal Bishop of Alaska
Dr. F. Ross Kinsler, specialist in adult education, missionary educator, one of the founders of Theological Education by Extension, and director of San Francisco Theological Seminary’s Southern California Extension Center
Dr. Kosuke Koyama, professor at Union Theological Seminary, New York and minister of United Church of Christ
Rev. Jaci C. Maraschin, priest of the Brazilian Anglican Church and professor at Federacao Escolas Superiores, Sao Paulo
Patricia N. Page, specialist in adult education and faculty at Church Divinity School of the Pacific, Berkeley
Rev. David M. Paton, canon of Canterbury Cathedral and noted expert on Roland Allen
Most Rev. Paul Reeves, Archbishop of New Zealand
Dr. Macu (Matthew) Salato (referred to in ENS and Living Church as Matthew Solato), physician, diplomat, and lay canon of the Anglican cathedral in Suva, Fiji

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.