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News, events, updates, and tidbits from the Presbyterian Historical Society. Use tags to read related articles or sort by author for similar posts written by PHS staff members and volunteers.

¡Si Podemos! Yes, we can!

November 29, 2023

Aguadilla Fellowship House, Christmas 1942. [Pearl ID: 141976]

The Presbyterian Church in Puerto Rico “Feels very much isolated from the rest of the Church,” said a Puerto Rican ecclesiastical leader during an organizational meeting regarding the unification commission. I recently completed a master's in public history

...

Author:

JoyC

Tags:

Puerto Rican History, Puerto Rico, Mission History

Board of Foreign Missions Photographs

April 10, 2023

Pakistan, 1960. Pearl ID: islandora:339914

Now available in Pearl are images from the United Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Commission on Ecumenical Mission and Relations photograph collection (RG 223).

The Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. Board of Foreign Missions (BFM) was organized in 1837 with a self-described purpose of...

Author:

Allison

Tags:

Digitization, Pearl Digital Collections, Mission History

A Woman on a Mission: Annie R. Houston Patterson

March 13, 2023

While piecing together the background of a museum collection object found in the basement storage of the Presbyterian Historical Society, I found myself growing very familiar with a young woman whose dream in life was to become a missionary. Her name was Annie R. Houston, and she chased her dream—going to school to study medicine, interning for three years post-education, and gaining the trust and encouragement of her family—until she caught it. Grasping her dream tightly, Annie traveled to China in September 1891, where she became the first woman physician sent there by the...

Author:

McKenna

Tags:

Womens History, Mission History

Presbyterians in Chiapas: Displaced and Abandoned

November 21, 2022

Ninety-seven years ago, the Presbyterian Church in the U.S.A. joined the Reformed Church in America in support of the work of Rev. Jose Coffin of Chiapas. As we continue to document the Protestant heritage of Latin America and the Caribbean, we'd like to share this article by Princeton Seminary's Mark Lewis Taylor, originally published 27 October 1999 in The Christian Century, republished in part here with the author's permission...

Author:

Guest Blogger

Tags:

Mission History, Mexico