This series contains material from the active phase of the West Indies Mission Board of the United Lutheran Church in America, which was founded in 1919; that is, before its membership was wholly overlapped with that of the Board of American Missions (BAM) and its business entirely subsumed in the business of the latter board, from 1926. It also contains materials from one of its predecessor mission boards, the Board for the Care of the Lutheran Churches in the Virgin Islands, U.S.A. of the General Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of North America, which was active in 1917-1918. The series is divided into two subseries: official board minutes, reports, and correspondence; and historical and publicity material. The first subseries contains materials from the West Indies Mission Board and from the Board for the Care of the Lutheran Churches in the Virgin Islands, U.S.A., which was established by the General Council at convention in Philadelphia in October 1917. The correspondence of the earlier group begins on November 28, 1917 and ends on September 16, 1918. Topics include board meeting dates and agendas; the search for a superintendent of the Lutheran work in the Virgin Islands; the continuation of deaconess work and other established charities in the territory; the raising of funds; debt satisfaction on various mortgages held in Denmark; and persuading the General Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the United States of America, the United Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church, and the Danish Evangelical Lutheran Church in America to participate in the work. Correspondents include William M. Horn, chairman of the committee; Danish matrons of Deaconess orphanages and other Lutheran charities in the territory; and Archdeacon P. Helweg-Larsen of the Lutheran Church at Christiansted, delegate to the U.S. Lutheran churches from the Lutheran churches in the Virgin Islands. The West Indies Mission Board materials consist of minutes of the West Indies Mission Board that begin on January 7, 1919 and end on November 9, 1926. The minutes cover issues arising from the acquisition of properties of the Danish state church in the former Danish West Indies, now the U.S. Virgin Islands. In then-confidential reports generated by the Rev. Zenan M. Corbe, the board's executive secretary, and by the Rev. Benjamin Franklin Hankey, following trips to the field, are frank evaluations of missionaries and native preachers in both fields, the remaining Danish clergymen and bureaucrats in the U.S. Virgin Islands, the morality of the native peoples, and the state of mission finances and record-keeping. The second subseries, historical and publicity material, contains material that refers to the work of the Lutheran Danish state church in the former Danish West Indies. These include an 1887 pamphlet written in English by the Rev. E.V. Lose of that colony; a few photographs from the pre-1917 Danish period; and two manuscript volumes from the colony's Ebenezer Orphanage at Frederiksted. The Ebenezer household accounts volume begins in April 1918 and was audited by the Rev. Jens Christian Pedersen, who though Danish-born had lived and worked for years in the English-speaking world in Australia, the U.S. and Liberia. He was sent to the U.S. Virgin Islands upon the transfer of national authority and eased the transition of the Danish Lutheran church there to American control. The Ebenezer minutes volume is written partially in English, partially in Danish. The publicity material consists of news clippings regarding the West Indies mission, 1919-1926; and two publications by the West Indies Mission Board from around 1923.
