LibGuides: HIS2070: Doing History: Primary Sources

19th-Century Books and Journals

The below resources provide books and/or journals from the 19th century. Search for your missionary's name, denomination or region in each.

Google Books
Google provides access to many digitized 19th-century books in the public domain in addition to secondary sources.
Hathi Trust Digital Library
Millions of digitized books from around the world are available here in full text. Most published before 1925.These books are included when searching in the library's catalog, WorldCat.
Internet Archive
The Internet Archive includes texts, audio files, and film, in addition to many 19th-century books. Ebooks are provided in an easy-to-read format.
Missiology.org.uk/
Provides resources on Christian missions from the 1st-century onward. Includes 1,000 digitized books from Redcliffe College Library and 500 books from Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide. Use the menu on left to browse.
Project Gutenberg
Project Gutenberg is a library of over 60,000 free eBooks, including many books in the public domain.

Yale University Day Missions Collection

The Day Missions Collection at Yale University focuses on institutional histories, missionary biography, the annual reports of missionary societies, periodicals, and works prepared by missionaries for the use of the peoples of mission fields, as well as related literature in areas such as ethnology, geography, comparative religions, and linguistics. It includes report, periodicals, and images.

Day Missions Collection - 19th & 20th century
This digitized collection includes institutional histories, missionary biography, the annual reports of missionary societies, periodicals, and works prepared by missionaries for the use of the peoples of mission fields, as well as related literature in areas such as ethnology, geography, comparative religions, and linguistics.
American Missionaries' Reports -- Asia & Africa
The Divinity Library's Day Missions Collection holds a large amount of missionary reports that have been digitized. Below is a list of societies whose reports are available through the Collection. New reports are added on a regular basis.
Christian Missions Periodicals
The Collection includes missionary periodicals. Inclusive dates of the issues scanned are noted; not all issues of a periodical may be available.

Wesleyan Holiness Digital Library including The Other Sheep

The Wesleyan Holiness Digital Library (WHDL) provides global access to a wealth of Wesleyan-Holiness resources, including archival materials. WHDL was initiated by the global Church of the Nazarene and serves as the institutional repository for Nazarene universities.

The WHDL contains digital copies of issues from 1931 to 1935 of The Other Sheep, a monthly journal devoted to the Foreign Missionary interests of the Church of the Nazarene.

Vol. 19, issues 1-7, 1931-32:
- https://www.whdl.org/collections/other-sheep-1931-1932-vol-19
Vol. 22, issues 8-11, 1934-35:
- http://whdl.nbc.edu/other-sheep-1935-february-v22-no8?language=en and
- https://www.whdl.org/collections/other-sheep-1934-1935-vol-22

Herald of Holiness (general publication of the Nazarene denomination; later changed names to Holiness Today): sporadic digitized coverage between 1935-1998:

https://ht.whdl.org/collections/holiness-today-and-herald-holiness-collection

Holiness Today collaboration with the WHDL: several digitized sources on missions are highlighted:

https://ht.whdl.org/new-subject-terms/missions

Primary Sources Online: Open Access

Keyword search for your missionary's name, denomination, and/or region. Try alternate spellings, if needed.

Boston University: History of Missiology Collection Search
The site provides access primarily to classic writings in the history of Protestant mission thought. Written by cross-cultural missionaries, mission administrators, and mission promoters, the collection contains mission theology, theory, and practice as well as some of the first ethnographic studies of people in primal societies, and histories of encounters between westerners and people from Asia, Africa, and the Americas.
British Library- Digitized Collections including materials on Wesleyan Missions
These digitized documents include a book and several images related to the Wesleyan Missions. Explore the British Library's collections by limiting your search to "Available online." Once in the record for an individual item, click on the red Go button.
The Consortium of Pentecostal Archives
The Consortium of Pentecostal Archives (CPA) is a collaborative effort initiated by repositories of Pentecostal archival repositories. Member institutions include the Assemblies of God, Church of God, Fuller Theological Seminary, Howard University, Foursquare Church, International Pentecostal Holiness Church, and the United Pentecostal Church.
Europeana Digital Collections
This list includes results related to the search term "missions." Add additional search terms to narrow the search further. Europeana includes digitized contents from thousands of European archives, libraries and museums to share cultural heritage for enjoyment, education and research.
Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center
The Flower Pentecostal Heritage Center (FPHC) is administered by the National Office of the Assemblies of God USA. The FPHC collects printed materials, oral histories, artifacts, photographs, and memorabilia documenting the Assemblies of God and the broader Pentecostal and charismatic movements, spanning the globe.
Google Books: The History of the Wesleyan Methodist Missionary Society
This ebook provided by Google Books was written by George Gillanders Findlay and William West Holdsworth and published in January 1924 by Epworth Press. To find more books like it, go to books.google.com and search the name of your missionary.
Hathi Trust Digital Library
Millions of digitized books from around the world are available full text. Most published before 1925.These books are included when searching in the library's catalog, WorldCat.
International Mission Photography Archive
The IMPA offers historical images from Protestant and Catholic missionary collections in Britain, Norway, Germany, France, Switzerland, and the United States. The photographs, which range in time from the middle of the nineteenth to the middle of the twentieth century, offer a visual record of missionary activities and experiences in Africa, China, Madagascar, India, Papua-New Guinea, and the Caribbean. Hosted by USC Libraries.
Internet Archive Results on Missionaries and Missions
This results list includes texts, audio files, and film by and about missionaries. Add more search terms to narrow the number of results. Documents are provided in an easy-to-access and read format.
Library of Congress Digital Collections
The Library of Congress provides free and open access through the Internet to written and spoken words, sound recordings, still and moving images, prints, maps, and sheet music that document the American experience. It is a digital record of American history and creativity.
Missiology
Missiology is a digital space dedicated to fostering the study of Christian mission. Their database of books does not provide full-text, but a book listed in their database may be tracked down in full text in another resource.
Missiology.org.uk/
Provides resources on Christian missions from the 1st-century onward. Includes 1,000 digitized books from Redcliffe College Library and 500 books from Cambridge Centre for Christianity Worldwide. Use the menu on left to browse.
Oklahoma Wesleyan University: Wesleyan Archives
The Archives of The Wesleyan Church houses the official repository of historical documents for the Church worldwide. This includes documents of the Pilgrim Holiness Church and Wesleyan Methodist Church prior to their merger in June of 1968, as well as later additions from the Standard Church of Canada and the Evangelical Church. Documents include General Conference and district conference minutes, local church histories and historical data from Wesleyan educational institutions. There are also biographies of founders and leaders of the denomination, as well as others who have been committed to evangelism, missions and social justice concerns. The missions arm of the Church provides a global perspective to the Archives collection documenting the growth and development of Wesleyan missions worldwide.
Reformed Presbyterian History Archives
Includes a digitized periodical from 1863 to 1895; they had missions in Syria throughout this period, and work in Cyprus and Asia Minor began in the 1880s.
Sudan Interior Mission Archive
Provides access to digitized periodicals and materials on missions worldwide, including in Bolivia, Argentina, India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Philippines, and Senegal.