AMERICAN BOARD ARCHIVES, GUIDE

Title: Records of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, affiliates, and successors in Turkey and the Balkans

Creator: Amerikan Bord Heyeti (American Board)

Date: 1825-2010.

Extent: ca. 160 cartons of textual materials, photographs, plans and maps.

System of arrangement: Arranged in four parts in original order as received from the Amerikan Bord Heyeti (ABH). Part I: Administrative and financial records (1825-ca. 1960), primarily from the ABH Office of the Treasurer (1881-ca. 1960); Part II: Selected reports and other records of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, affiliates, and successors in Turkey and the Balkans, 1825-1988; Part III: Records of the Amerikan Bord Heyeti / Health and Education Foundation (Sağlık ve Eğitim Vakfı or SEV), 1968-2010; Part IV: Photographs and other visual materials.

Scope and content: Primarily includes correspondence of the Amerikan Bord Heyeti’s financial officers in Constantinople (Istanbul, Turkey) and reports by staff, committees, and mission stations in Turkey. Correspondents include officers and staff of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (Boston, Mass.), and financial officers William W. Peet (1851-1942, in office 1881-1925), his successor Luther R. Fowle (1886-1973, in office 1926-1954). Includes correspondence and financial reports that document the activities of mission stations and component schools, seminaries, medical facilities, orphanages, evangelistic work, and publishing work and estimates of expenditures, often created for the mid-year annual meeting. Many reports are specific to the Turkey Mission. Other reports and documents relate to the missions in the Balkans, Syria and other locations in the Middle East. Records include rich information about local communities in the Ottoman Empire and the Republic of Turkey. While most records are organizational records, some personal papers such as those of Elias Riggs and his family are included. Also found are photographs of mission stations and activities, personnel, and people and life in Turkey; deeds, maps, and plans of mission properties. Also includes permits, certificates, and letters in Ottoman and modern Turkish. The records of the Amerikan Bord Heyeti subsequent to the creation in 1968 of the Health and Education Foundation (Sağlık ve Eğitim Vakfı, or SEV), a private, non-profit Turkish organization, are part of this collection but closed until 2052.

Administrative history: The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions (ABCFM) was a Protestant agency founded in 1810 and chartered by the state of Massachusetts in 1812 to send missionaries abroad, primarily for religious motives, but also to pursue general altruistic labor, including opening schools and hospitals. Between 1820—when its first personnel arrived in Smyrna, today’s Izmir—and the second decade of the twentieth century, the ABCFM established more than twenty mission stations in Anatolia and the Balkans, which mainly served local Christian populations, chiefly Armenian and Greek. For organizational purposes, it eventually divided its work in these territories into four separate administrative units: the European, Western, Central, and Eastern Turkey Missions. In 1914, on the eve of the First World War, the American Board’s ventures in this vast region included 450 schools, nine hospitals, ten dispensaries, and several printing presses. About one-third of the Board’s operations worldwide in this era were centered here, and the ABCFM was undoubtedly the most significant contemporary American presence in the area.

Most Board enterprises closed during World War I, and after the founding of the Turkish Republic in 1923, those remaining in Turkey were incorporated into the new national secular system. In 1928, the Board was operating eight schools, three hospitals, and a press in the country, but the following decades witnessed further closures. Circa 1960, The ABCFM was replaced by the United Church Board for World Ministries (UCBWM), the mission program of the United Church of Christ (UCC), which retained the longstanding title “American Board” for its Turkish office (Amerikan Bord Heyeti, or ABH, in Turkish). The UBCWM adopted an explicit policy to transfer existing ABH institutions to Turkish ownership and supervision, and in 1968, the Health and Education Foundation (Sağlık ve Eğitim Vakfı, or SEV), a private, non-profit Turkish organization, was established with the initial task of securing Board properties in its name. SEV assumed full administrative and financial management of all surviving ABH institutions in 1998 (three schools, one hospital, and a publishing house) and full ownership by 2010. In the same year (2010), ABH, then functioning as the liaison office of the UCC’s Wider Church Ministries, closed permanently, bringing to an end the American Board’s historical presence in Turkey.

Conditions governing access: Collection materials that have been digitized are available for public access and educational use through SALT Research: https://www.archives.saltresearch.org/. See “Digitized series” below for more information.

The American Board Memorial Book and Personnel Card File are available through the Digital Library for International Research (DLIR): http://www.dlir.org/abpcc-home.html.

Other materials will be available to researchers as they are cataloged and digitized.

Materials related to the Health and Education Foundation (Sağlık ve Eğitim Vakfı, or SEV) are closed until 2052.

Conditions governing reproduction and use: Items in the archival collection are licensed under a Creative Commons license, and non-commercial use is permitted under the terms of this license.

Citation: Attribute items with the following citation note: Records of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, affiliates, and successor organizations in Turkey and the Balkans, 1825-1999. American Research Institute in Turkey, United Church of Christ, SALT Research.

For permission to use items for commercial purposes, please contact: This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Languages and scripts of the material: Most of the material is in English. There are also documents in Armenian, French, Ottoman, and modern Turkish.

Name and location of repository: SALT Research, Istanbul, Turkey.

Custodial history: In 2012 the Wider Church Ministries, a Covenanted Ministry of the United Church of Christ, which had inherited the archives of the Amerikan Board Heyeti, transferred the collection to the care of the American Research Institute in Turkey (ARIT). Wider Church Ministries and ARIT are co-owners of the collection. In 2013 ARIT and Garanti Kultur entered into a protocol where SALT Research would house and digitize the collection and make it available on their website.

Processing information: Cataloging and digitizing is ongoing with ARIT and SALT Research staff. Grant funding for this project has been provided by the United States Department of State, the National Endowment for the Humanites and the Gladys Krieble Delmas Foundation.

Digitization Status: Approximately 12% of the total collection is available online as of July 2016.

Related materials:

American Board Pamphlet Collection, American Research Institute in Turkey, Istanbul: http://library.hds.harvard.edu/collections/rare-books/notable-collections

American Board Periodical Collection, American Research Institute in Turkey, Istanbul: http://www.dlir.org/arit-periodical-collection.html

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Archives, 1810-1961, Harvard University, Houghton Library: http://oasis.lib.harvard.edu/oasis/deliver/~hou01467

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions Central Headquarters Reports, Yale University, Yale Divinity Library, Day Missions Collection: http://web.library.yale.edu/divinity/day-missions-collection-annual-reports-listing

Of Faith and Courage: The History of the ABCFM, online exhibit, Congregational Library and Archives: http://exhibits.congregationallibrary.org/exhibits/show/abcfm200

Near East Relief Historical Society Archive: http://neareastmuseum.com/archives/

Online exhibit: http://neareastmuseum.com/exhibit/

Near East Relief Foundation collection, Rockefeller Archive Center: http://neareastmuseum.com/archives/

Near East Relief Committee Records, 1904-1950, The Burke Library Archives, Columbia University Libraries, Union Theological Seminary: http://library.columbia.edu/content/dam/libraryweb/locations/burke/fa/mrl/ldpd_10126110.pdf

Thomas and Carmelite Christie and Family: An Inventory of their papers at the Minnesota Historical Society: http://www2.mnhs.org/library/findaids/P1282.xml?return=brand%3Dfindaids%26q%3Dp1282

American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions pamplet collection, Harvard Divinity School, Andover-Harvard Theological Library: http://library.hds.harvard.edu/collections/rare-books/notable-collections

Part I

Administrative and financial records primarily from the Amerikan Bord Heyeti Office of the Treasurer

The following series from Part I have been established and are available online. More material will be added to the series as they are cataloged and scanned. Included are some “virtual series” on special topics, such as Near East Relief, that have been pulled together from different locations in the records and presented as digital collections.

  • Annual Station Reports
    • Most of the items in this series of the American Board collection date to the 1920s and ‘30s and primarily include the yearly reports of the ABCFM’s stations and other institutions in Anatolia that survived the First World War or opened after the conflict. The Board’s work contracted after the war, and it had to adapt its efforts to changing circumstances, including, most significantly, the end of the Ottoman Empire and the founding of the Turkish Republic. The authors of these records mainly comprise heads of stations and other institutions. Besides documenting administrative matters, their reports offer glimpses into contemporary political and social developments that influenced and shaped both the Board’s undertakings and the region as a whole. The material was collected in two large binders by the American Board administration in the mid-20th century, and its original compilation has been maintained in the online series.
  • Istanbul Treasury Department Records, 1881-1925
    • Items in this series were primarily created during the years when William W. Peet served as the ABH treasurer (1881-1925). Documents include correspondence with mission stations, the headquarters office of the ABCFM in Boston, and other organizations, as well as financial records such as account books, bills and receipts. Reports, minutes, plans, property deeds and other records relating to mission stations are also found.
  • Near East Mission Records, Istanbul Treasury Department, 1926-ca. 1960
    • Items in this series were primarily created during the years when Luther R. Fowle served as the ABH treasurer (1926-1954), after the ABCFM’s European, Western, Central, and Eastern Turkey Missions were combined into a single unit, The Near East Mission, subsequent to the First World War. Documents include correspondence with mission stations, the headquarters office of the ABCFM in Boston, and other organizations and financial records such as account books, bills and receipts. Reports, minutes, plans, property deeds and other records relating to mission stations are also found.
  • Near East Relief, 1917-1928
    • Most of the items relate to the agency Near East Relief (NER, founded in 1915 under the name American Committee for Armenian and Syrian Relief) and its efforts to provide humanitarian aid in Anatolia and surrounding areas during and after the First World War. The material consists chiefly of administrative and accounting records related to NER, which were held at the Istanbul headquarters of the Amerikan Bord Heyeti. It includes correspondence of the ABH treasurer and his assistants, between Istanbul and NER offices in Athens, Beirut, Paris, and New York, as well as individual NER officers and departments, such as general secretary Charles Vickrey; assistant director Carl C. Compton; acting director J.W. Crutcher; auditor S. Chamberlin; medical director Albert W. Dewey; acting controller H. C. Jaquith; treasurer William R.McGowan; the Individual Remittances Department; Personal Services Department; Mailing Department; and the Transportation and Supply Department.
  • Riggs Papers
    • This series includes private correspondence and other material, including five diaries and close to 2,000 pages of personal letters, notes, and sermons. These items relate to the Riggs family of missionaries, principally Rev. Elias Riggs (1810-1910), his wife Martha Dalzell Riggs (1810-87), and three of their children, Elizabeth, Emma, and Samuel.
    • Correspondence
    • Diaries
  • Miscellaneous bound materials
    • This series contains a variety of bound volumes and other materials that were not created by the Istanbul Treasury Department. Included are minutes, account ledgers from mission stations, and letters. Some of this material was sent from the mission stations to the Treasurer’s Office after the closure of ABH institutions in the twentieth century.

Part II

Selected reports and other records of the American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions, affiliates, and successors in Turkey and the Balkans, 1825-1988

  • The items in this series consist of official correspondence, documents, reports, and minutes of the American Board’s enterprises in Turkey and the Balkans, primarily communications of officers and personnel, as well as reports by staff, committees, and mission stations and institutions. Most of the material in the series was singled out for its importance by the ABH administration during the mid-twentieth century and bound into separate volumes, which were later separated for preservation and scanning. Much of the correspondence was issued from the ABH headquarters in Istanbul, and correspondents include officers and staff of the ABCFM’s main office in Boston, Mass.; Christian organizations in the United States and Great Britain, United States diplomatic representatives, Turkish government officials, and local pastors. Many of the reports are specific to institutions of the Western Turkey Mission.

Part III

Records of the Amerikan Bord Heyeti / Health and Education Foundation (Sağlık ve Eğitim Vakfı, or SEV), 1968-2010

  • Materials include administrative, financial and other records of the Amerikan Bord Heyeti subsequent to the creation of the Health and Education Foundation in 1968. They are not open for research until 2052.

Part IV

Photographs and other visual materials

  • This series of the American Board Collection contains approximately 3,000 images, which date from the late 19th century up to 2010, when the Board’s historical successor, the “Amerikan Bord Heyeti,” the Turkish liaison office of the United Church of Christ, finally closed its offices in Istanbul. The items in the collection are mostly original photographs, but also include glass and film negatives, lantern slides and published material, postcards and other printed matter, as well as some maps and plans. Besides imagery of Board personnel and ABCFM institutions and patrons, the series also offers general images of Anatolian people and places. These visual records of village and city life, important sites, and contemporary events are of exceptional historical and ethnographic value. The collection is primarily organized according to location, by town and city, but also includes a special portrait section, in addition to several albums. A number of items, especially images of individuals, are unidentified.