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News, events, updates, and tidbits from the Presbyterian Historical Society. Use tags to read related articles or sort by author for similar posts written by PHS staff members and volunteers.

November 1, 2018
Jaime (Jim) and Alma Wright, 1990. From RG 424.

As the election of far-right presidential candidate Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil reminds us, the defense of human rights...

September 11, 2018

--by Jennifer Graber

Session minutes of the Anadarko Presbyterian Church, founded in Indian Territory in 1889, referred to the “problem” of Native American church membership on the very first page. Rev. Silas Fait, along with an elder, examined an “Indian named Emma.” Though she “accept[ed] Christ,” the leaders rejected Emma’s application as she maintained that Christ could not “interfere with her own gods.” In the follow-up notes, Rev. Fait worried that “great harm will come to the mission if care is not exercised...

August 24, 2018

A common conception of Protestant mission work is that it went hand in hand with colonial and imperial projects in the Global South. Indeed, some of the most frequently accessed collections at PHS reflect the extensive presence of Presbyterian missionaries in Africa, Southeast Asia, and Latin America. Less known is how American Presbyterians responded to Europe's desolated social fabric and broken people in the wake of the Second World War by organizing the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Europe Mission, an effort headquartered in Geneva. Ninety-eight cubic feet of records of the...

June 29, 2018

In an isolated part of Brazil, on the evening of Friday, October 4 1957, John Stout looked at the skies and took the first photographs of the earth-orbiting Sputnik I. In fact, he took 400 photographs with equipment that cost only $10.

The Soviet Union's launch of the satellite brought the Cold War to a fever pitch, with more than just national pride at stake. The Soviets were poised to...

March 14, 2018

Micah 6:8 “And what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?”

The preceding verse of scripture provides an apt description of Margaret Purchase (1926-2009), a missionary, Christian educator, and activist. The Margaret Purchase Papers (RG 501) speak to the remarkable life of a woman over the span of seven decades. The papers document Ms. Purchase’s missionary service in Iraq...

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