Correspondence 1919-1960; 1930-1960.

ArchivalResource

American Lutheran Church (1930-1960). Board of Foreign Missions. Correspondence 1919-1960; 1930-1960.

Correspondence 1919-1960; 1930-1960.

http://www.worldcat.org/oclc/48112902

The records consist of correspondence to and from the members and staff of the Board of Foreign Missions (BFM) of the American Lutheran Church (ALC). Some pre-date the ALC from the time when its predecessor church body, the Evangelical Lutheran Synod of Iowa and Other States (Iowa Synod), was in charge of the New Guinea mission work. Most of the files are organized by the name of the person who created the file. Chief correspondent of Box 1 is F. Braun, who served both as the Chair of the New Guinea Section from 1931-1938 and as Finance Agent (later Financial Secretary) from 1940-1945. Box 2 contains correspondence of Braun as well as of Richard Taeuber, Executive Secretary of the New Guinea Section from 1931-1943 and of the BFM from 1944-1947. Box 4 and part of Box 5 are credited to Theodore Fricke, Commissioner from 1945-1947 and Executive Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions from 1948-1960. Fricke's files include correspondence with the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia, Department of World Missions. The files for Braun, Taeuber, and Fricke are further titled by the name of the chief correspondent, though the one named may not be the only correspondent. The correspondents include individuals such as F. Otto Thiele, long-time mission official of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Australia (UELCA) and director of the combined work of the Iowa Synod and the UELCA, and C.C. Hein, president of the American Lutheran Church. They also include the related mission groups, the Rheinische Missions Gesellschaft and the Neuendettelsau Mission Society, which founded and later handed over the fields in which the ALC was working. A large section of the Fricke records deal with the Commission on Younger Churches and Orphaned Missions of the National Lutheran Council and the Department of World Mission of the Lutheran World Federation. Box 4 also includes the New Guinea correspondence of Emmanuel Poppen, president of the ALC. Poppen's correspondence is arranged chronologically. Box 5 records, labeled internal, consist of correspondence among members of the Board of Foreign Missions. The remainder of Box 5 and all of Box 6 and Box 7 contain correspondence between the BFM and the New Guinea field superintendents (later called presidents) for the Lutheran Mission Madang (LMM) and the Lutheran Mission New Guinea (LMNG). These include J.F. Mager, 1932; F.E. Pietz, 1932-1938; Paul E. Fliehler, 1939-1942; and John Kuder, 1945-1960. Kuder's records contain letters to and from A.C. Frerichs, who acted as president in 1951-1952 and 1959-1960 when Kuder was on furlough. The Kuder records are further separated into letters from Kuder and letters to Kuder.

7 boxes.

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America Library, ELCA Library