A Few Voices from the Great Depression

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One of the unique strengths – and challenges – of archival records is their multifaceted nature. Rather than presenting a single, carefully shaped narrative, archival records, from letters to pamphlets to oral histories, offer small, sometimes contradictory glimpses into the larger stories of individuals, communities, and historical eras. This month, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections highlights a few items from our collections that shed a small personal light on one of the most defining and consequential eras of modern American history – the Great Depression.

Much has been written about the stock market crash, bread lines, the New Deal, and the Dust Bowl. Our particular collections, however, offer a view of the Depression through the lenses of evangelism and missions: How did pastors and evangelists address the crisis in their sermons? How did some Christians connect spiritual concerns to the economic and emotional stresses of the era? What effect did the Depression have on shaping the direction and vitality of evangelistic efforts? What was it like to experience the Depression as a missionary, far from home? And how did churches and evangelists respond to the needs—and opportunities—of the period?

E. J. Pace Collection (CN 702)

From 1916 to 1946, E. J. Pace, newspaper illustrator, cartoonist, and former missionary, contributed a weekly cartoon to the influential Christian publication The Sunday School Times. The subjects of his cartoons were usually centered on different aspects of Christian life or theology, but also occasionally spoke to current events. In the below cartoons, from March and May of 1932, Pace frames the Depression in the context of Christian faithfulness in God’s provision.

Two cartoons by Pace on faith and the Great Depression, Collection 625, OS40.
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A Practical Woman: The Purpose-Filled (and Adventurous) Life of Nina Eleanor (Gemmell) Vleck

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The Evangelism & Missions Archives includes the records of dozens of Christian organizations and each of these has reports, letters, photos, scrapbooks and audio and video records that tell the stories of hundreds of people who spent their lives ministering and sharing the Gospel. From all this multitude, this month we highlight the remarkable life and ministry of one – Nina Eleanor Gemmell van Vleck.

Nina Gemmell as a young woman, ca. 1915. PF: Gemmell, Nina.

At 24 years old, Nina Gemmell sailed to China in 1919 to work with China Inland Mission (later the Overseas Missionary Fellowship), just a few weeks after the end of the First World War. Born in 1895, she had grown up in Kansas and been educated as a teacher at Washington State Normal School. She then taught for a few years in rural schools in the state. Years later she remembered,  “On September 14, 1914, the first day of the first World War, was also the first day of my teaching in the white schoolhouse. I was escorted  by the three Batie children, over two board fences and two barbed wire fences and through a lot where there were horses and a field of cattle. The school children, of which there were about 38, stood around the door eyeing the new teacher, who arrived on foot dressed in a shirtwaist and hobble skirt.”[1]

After landing in China and spending time acquiring the Chinese language, she was sent to teach at a girls’ school in Yuanchow (Yuanzou) in the province of Kiangsi (Jiangxi). She found her work there immensely rewarding, as illustrated by this excerpt from a 1922 letter to her supporters, “Two weeks ago we were glad and thankful to see four profess a faith in the gospel. After a quiet afternoon I noticed a serious look on their faces as they finished their evening work….  Toward evening I noticed a group at my door waiting for an interview….  Seeing their patient waiting  and with a prayer for wisdom and understanding as to how to deal with their calamity or whatever it might be, [I approached them.]  One searching look at their faces drove away all fear and immediately four of them stepped forward and handed me four small pieces of paper.  This is a sample of what they contained:  “From this day and henceforth until the coming of the Lord, I want to believe on and follow the Lord Jesus Christ and worship the true God. I want to be very good.  Signed, Golden Lily.”[2] 

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New Treasures: A Collector’s Gift to the Archives

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The Wheaton Archives & Special Collections and the Marion E. Wade Center are pleased to announce new additions to their archival holdings donated from the estate of Ralph Blair. Dr. Blair collected widely in the areas of American evangelicalism and British Christianity. Earlier this spring, several boxes containing artifacts from the Blair collection arrived at Wheaton College for campus archival staff to add to our rich collections. These items will soon be available for research, and a few highlights from the collections are featured below. We are grateful for these donations! 

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Capturing the Camp Meeting

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From the early 19th century through the early 20th century, thousands of Americans gathered regularly at remote campgrounds amidst the trees and grass of a still mostly rural nation, pitching tents to hear revival preachers at meetings that often lasted for several days and sometimes continued for weeks. During these gatherings, crowds enthusiastically participated in prayer meetings, baptisms (and sometimes weddings), listened to sermons and hymns, and reconnected with distant friends and family.

Accounts of the origins of camp meetings in America differ, but most scholars trace the movement to revival gatherings that began in the southern and southeastern United States during the early 19th century, adapted from the “open air” preaching tradition popularized during the Great Awakening. Although camp meetings drew participants from many denominations, some were more prevalent, especially Presbyterians, Baptists, and Methodists. Because of their existing tradition of circuit riders and outdoor worship, Methodists became particularly associated with the early camp meeting movement.

Across sparsely populated rural America, families traveled as far as 40 miles to attend the meetings. For those who lived in communities without an established church, camp meetings offered a rare opportunity for both religious and social fellowship. Amid the revival preaching and festive atmosphere, emotions could run high, and accounts frequently described expressive forms of worship, including spontaneous fainting, shouting, and dancing.

“Methodist Camp Meeting, Near Portchester, NY” Frank Leslie’s Illustrated Newspaper, Sept. 1856, Sacred Arts Collection (80.1375).
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A Few Notes from Wheaton College Opera

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This month, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections features a guest post on the history of Wheaton College’s opera program from Stephanie Chiodras, a 2019 graduate of the Wheaton College Conservatory Voice Program. Stephanie currently serves as the Archives & Museum Coordinator and continues to perform professionally in Wheaton and in the Chicagoland area.

Every year, the Wheaton College Conservatory Voice Department provides masterful performances of an opera or musical as a requirement for their degree. Students perform a full Mainstage Opera (MUEP 357) every other year, and a musical, or double-bill of single-acts or smaller works for the years in between. The ensemble is cast late in the Spring semester, and incoming freshmen can audition for chorus parts upon their arrival in the fall. The students rehearse all through the Fall Semester with a performance in January, after which Opera Workshop or Opera Musical Theater (MUEP 356) begins with a performance near finals week of Spring Semester.

The Magic Flute program from January 2017, 2016 – 2017 Conservatory Programs; Die Fledermaus program from January 2018, 2017 – 2018 Conservatory Programs.

The Opera Workshop allows singers to delve deeper into the mechanics of performing an operatic role on stage, by performing a collection of scenes rather than full works. Many voice students will go on to perform in professional operas and operettas, so this scene work provides them with the skills needed to prepare for an operatic role. This preparation includes detailed language and diction work, acting and movement exercises, and character discussions. And, as the February 20, 1970 Wheaton Record described, “The Opera Workshop is designed to give performers and audience an appreciation for opera.”

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An Artist with Pen and Brush: Introducing the Lilias Trotter Papers

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Lilias Trotter, c. 1870s. Lilias Trotter Legacy.

As we near the end of Women’s History Month, the Wheaton Archives & Special Collections shines a special spotlight on the life and ministry of Lilias Trotter—artist, author, and missionary to Algeria for 40 years. Comprising journals, sketchbooks, and watercolor paintings, the Lilias Trotter Papers were placed on deposit at the Wheaton Archives & Special Collections more than a decade ago. In 2023, these unique materials became part of the permanent collections through a generous gift from the Lilias Trotter Legacy.

Today, the Lilias Trotter Papers are a cherished and much-requested collection, accessed by scholars and writers to explore a range of academic disciples—theology, art, missiology, gender studies, and life writing. But more frequently, the materials are used by members of the public hoping for a personal encounter with Lilias Trotter through the words and artwork captured in the pages of her journals and sketchbooks. 

Lilias Trotter’s beginnings were inauspicious enough. Born in 1853, Isabella Lilias Trotter was one of nine children raised in John and Isabella’s comfortable home in London’s West End. Young Lilias received the advantage of a middle-class Victorian education, including private education and travel to fashionable locales in Switzerland and Italy.

Rough sketch of a saw mill from Lilias Trotter’s 1876 sketchbook captured during a European tour. 
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“Black Students of Wheaton Present…”

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The origins of Black History Month can be traced back more than a century to Carter G. Woodson, who founded the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) in 1915, after attending the fiftieth anniversary celebrations for national emancipation in Chicago. As part of its efforts to draw attention to the study of Black history and culture, the Association established Negro History Week in February 1926. Observance gradually gained national traction, especially during the 1960s, as a growing number of college students organized campus events highlighting Black culture and urged universities to established courses and academic departments dedicated to Black history or literature. In 1976, President Gerald R. Ford officially recognized February as Black History Month, and Congress formally institutionalized its observance ten years later in Public Law 99-244.

Program for first Black Arts Festival, April 28-May 2,1969. Vertical File: SOUL.

In keeping with national trends, Wheaton College’s earliest organized observances of Black history and culture took shape with the student-led “Black Arts Festival,” inaugurated in the spring of 1969.

While Wheaton College had enrolled students of color since the 1860s, their numbers had typically remained small. The introduction of the Compensatory Education Program (CEP) in the fall of 1968 brought a notable increase of Black and Puerto Rican students to campus from urban centers around the United States, like Chicago or New York. Adjusting to life in suburban Wheaton, CEP students sought to form an organization that would both foster solidarity among minority students and educate a predominantly white campus community. Under the guidance of Dr. Ozzie Edwards, Wheaton’s only Black faculty member at the time, students founded the Student Organization for Urban Leadership (SOUL) in early 1969. The organization quickly turned its attention to planning a week-long celebration dedicated to Black art, music, and culture.

SOUL gave their new festival the theme “Si Si,” a Swahili word meaning “we” or “us.” Reflecting on this theme of unity amid difference, The Wheaton Record reported that SOUL: “express[es] hope that their Festival will be received biculturally by the rest of the campus and community…. that they desire that one culture not be judged by the standards of another, but that it be viewed as an entity in itself.” (The Wheaton Record, “Students Announce Plans for Black Arts Festival,” April 1969).

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“Nothing new but that which hath been before”: 2025 Accession Review

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With the start of a new year comes a favorite tradition at Wheaton Archives & Special Collections – taking a moment to look back at some of the fascinating “new” old materials that found their way to the Archives over the last year. Below is a review of selected highlights from the Archives’ 2025 acquisitions:

Evangelism & Missions Archives

Overhead showing the relationship of foreign missions to local ministry for the Brazil field of Unevangelized Field Missions. (Crossworld)

Perhaps the most significant additions to the Evangelism & Missions Archives were the large accessions we received from evangelical foreign mission associations. SEND International (formerly Far Eastern Gospel Crusade), Crossworld (formerly Unevangelized Field Mission), The Evangelical Alliance Mission (TEAM), and SIM International are each multimillion dollar organizations that between them have thousands of workers on five continents. SIM, in particular, was born out of the merger of several different missions active in North and South America, Africa, Asia and Europe. Together these mission organizations gave more than 100 linear feet of their files to the Archives (TEAM has been donating materials since 2022) with other large accessions from SIM expected in 2026. In addition, the family of John Gration, a missionary of Africa Inland Mission and long-time professor of missions at Wheaton College, gave his files on the history of AIM, including the manuscript of his dissertation. Together these different accessions give an extraordinarily detailed pictures of North American Protestant missions around the world in the 20th and 21st centuries.

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Faith, Athletics, and the Archives: An Interview with Dr. Paul Putz

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This past October, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections welcomed Dr. Paul Putz for the annual Archival Research Lecture, where he presented “Sports and the Stories We Tell: Evangelical Identity and the Christian Athlete Movement in America.” This month, we feature an interview with Dr. Putz that dives into his research at the intersection of American evangelicalism and big-time sports.

When and how were you first introduced to Wheaton Archives & Special Collections?

When you study American evangelicalism, the archives at Wheaton are a go-to destination. During my dissertation research, I looked to see what holdings Wheaton had related to sports and Christianity, and I found that it had several significant collections. I applied for a travel grant that allowed me to make the trip up from Texas. Getting to spend a week at Wheaton going through archival material was truly a joy, and it shaped my dissertation and then my book project in significant ways, too.

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Hidden In Plain Sight

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The Evangelism and Missions Archives holds over seven hundred processed collections. Some correspondence in our purchased microfilm stretches back into the 1600s, but we also have documents and media from as recent as the current year. The predominant time frame for most of the evangelistic and missionary activity documented in these collections, however, is the 20th century. As the Archives’ name suggests, the topics that hold together all the collections are evangelism and missions.

But to assume that the Archives only reflects these two areas is to miss the depth and breadth that these primary sources offer. Many collections also document social movements, political events, cultural trends, and more in the countries where missionaries and evangelists happened to find themselves. It is still surprising to discover unexpected points of convergence between collections that we archivists never anticipated or noticed until a collection was arranged and described to be fully open to the public. Four examples come to mind:

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