American Evangelicalism

Bob Shuster Reflects on 50 Years of the Evangelism & Mission Archives

/ Emily Banas / Leave a comment

Earlier this August, archivist Robert (Bob) Shuster retired from Wheaton College after 51 years. From the first days of the Billy Graham Center Archives in 1975, Bob has built, guided, and championed the Archives as a major research collection documenting evangelical global missions and evangelism. This month, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections features an interview with Bob reflecting on his five decades of work in the Archives. The interview has been edited for length and clarity.

What first drew you to archival work?

Bob Shuster in the Carol Stream warehouse with early BGC Archives collections, 1976. (ASC Photo Files).

Well, I knew I wanted to make a living in history, and I didn’t want to work for a living, so I didn’t want to be a teacher [laughs]. We had at our school in the library this vocational dictionary with different occupations, and I saw archivists in there. And it seemed like that’s something I could do. It would be interesting. I went to Wheaton College and I got a degree in history. Then I went up to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, because they were one of the relatively few schools at that time who had a program in archive administration. I was taught by their archivist, F. Gerald Ham. When I went to Wheaton, Earle Cairns was a history professor here, and head of the department, and I was his assistant, and then he gave me a reference to Jerry Ham, who was his old student. So that’s how I got into the program up at Wisconsin.

What aspects of that education prepared you the most for the profession?

The master’s degree I got at Madison was in history with a minor in archive administration. And more valuable than the degree, or the minor, I actually worked at the State Historical Society in Wisconsin when I was a graduate student up there for two years. So, I went on field trips with John Fleckner, and I wrote guides. I did one whole collection on my own. It was the papers of someone who had an A&W root beer stand in some suburb of Milwaukee. So, putting that together gave me some actual experience. The archive administration courses were helpful grounding. So, it was all beneficial, but particularly, as you would expect, the actual hands on experience.

Continue reading →

A Few Voices from the Great Depression

/ Emily Banas / Leave a comment

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.
Continue reading →

Capturing the Camp Meeting

/ Emily Banas / Leave a comment

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).
Continue reading →

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

/ Emily Banas / Leave a comment

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.

Continue reading →

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

/ Emily Banas / Leave a comment

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.

Continue reading →

Hidden In Plain Sight

/ Emily Banas / Leave a comment

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:

Continue reading →

“Show, Don’t Tell:” Introducing the Religious Postcard Collection 

/ Emily Banas / 1 Comment

This week, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections shares a guest post from Andre-Ross Gennette, who is interning with the Archives this academic year. Andre-Ross Gennette is a junior at Wheaton College, dual majoring in History and Biblical and Theological Studies, as well as a Wheaton Aequitas Fellow with the cohort for the Fellowship in Public Humanities and the Arts. Along with his work processing Wheaton College alumni scrapbooks, Andre-Ross curated three exhibits for the Archives this spring, including one on the Archives’ extensive collection of religious postcards.

This February, Wheaton Archives and Special Collections digs into its collection of evangelical postcards, a now forgotten but vitally important resource for 20th century Christians in the United States.  

In 1873, the United States Postal Service introduced the “postal card”—a small and plain card that had its postage pre-printed on it, and cost just one cent, equivalent to about 25 cents today. It wasn’t big enough to send a full letter but was enough for a few sentences. Despite its simplicity, the postal card was a resounding success. For the first time in United States history, short form communication via cheap and accessible postal cards began to replace full-size letters.  

Continue reading →

A Voice for Change: Excerpts from the William E. Pannell Oral History Collection

/ Emily Banas / Leave a comment
1981: Rev. Pannell leading a Christian Community Development workshop at the Voice of Calvary Ministries’ Study Center in Jackson, Mississippi, USA. (PF: Voice of Calvary – Conferences and Meetings)

In celebration of Black History Month this February, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections features our oral history collection with Rev. Dr. William E. Pannell, who passed away last October. Over more than five decades of ministry, Dr. Pannell served as a youth pastor in Detroit, directed training for Youth for Christ, helped lead Tom Skinner Associates as Vice President, and taught future generations of pastors and evangelists at Fuller Theological Seminary as the assistant professor of evangelism and director of the Black Pastors’ program. Along with his busy work as an evangelist and teacher, Dr. Pannell published several influential books on race and the evangelical church, including My Friend, the Enemy (1968), Evangelism from the Bottom Up (1992), and The Coming Race Wars?: A Cry for Reconciliation (1993).

From 1995 to 2007, Wheaton archivist Bob Shuster sat down with Dr. Pannell for several sessions of oral history interviews. Totaling more than seven hours, the recordings include Dr. Pannell’s reflections on his childhood, education, Christian faith, ministry development, and race relations in the American church. Wheaton Archives & Special Collections recently released the complete transcripts to these interviews, which are now available through the online guide to Collection 498: William E. Pannell Oral History Interviews. Below are selections from the interviews covering Dr. Pannell’s early life, growing racial consciousness, visit to the 1966 Congress on Evangelism, and development of his work with B.M. Nottage and Tom Skinner. The selections have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Continue reading →

New Old Stuff in the Archives: 2024 Edition

/ Emily Banas / Leave a comment

As we celebrate the start of a new year, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections looks back at some of the interesting accessions of historical documents that the Archives received in 2024 and the new or updated collections we processed and opened to researchers.

New Accessions

For almost seventy years, the story of missionaries’ attempts to bring Christianity to the Waorani people of the Amazon (called the Aucas by their enemies) has been well known to American evangelicals. This year we received the files of Dr. Kathryn Long, who wrote God in the Rainforest (2017), which tells the story from the killing of the five missionaries who first made the attempt to reach the Waorani in 1956 through the development of an Indigenous Christian community among the Waorani in later years. She generously gave her voluminous research files and relevant books to the Archives, including material from her own trips to Ecuador and documents about her work on the staff of Campus Crusade in South America in the 1980s.

Boat used for Unevangelized Fields Mission (later CrossWorld) for river ministry in Brazil.
Continue reading →

Oration Glorious

/ Emily Banas / Leave a comment

Wheaton Archives & Special Collections holds hundreds of sermon manuscripts from evangelists and pastors like Jonathan Blanchard, William Biederwolf, Billy Sunday, Jonathan Goforth, Oswald Chambers, Aimee Semple McPherson, Torrey M. Johnson, Kathryn Kuhlman, V. Raymond Edman, Louis H. Evans, and Luis Palau.

Portrait of Aimee Semple McPherson. Photo File: McPherson, Aimee Semple.

Ranging from brief outlines and research notes to full sermon transcripts and covering a wide variety of Biblical and pastoral topics, these manuscripts showcase evangelists’ great diversity in style and approach to sharing the gospel. This December, in celebration of the Christmas season, Wheaton Archives & Special Collections features three Advent sermons from one of the most unique and charismatic communicators in our collections – Aimee Semple McPherson.

Aimee Semple McPherson (1890–1944) was a pioneering evangelist and founder of the International Church of the Foursquare Gospel. Converted at a Pentecostal tent revival in 1908, she began her ministry career as a missionary alongside her first husband, Robert Semple, before his untimely death in China. She returned to the U.S. and after a troubled second marriage, she launched an itinerant revival ministry, ultimately founding the Angelus Temple in Los Angeles in 1923. Known for her dramatic and musical preaching, she brought thousands into the Angelus Temple for multiple services every week, made several transcontinental speaking tours, and became the first woman to preach a sermon over the radio.

Continue reading →