Travel journals for USA & Canada

From 1939 to 1944 Edwin W Smith was in the USA and for the first four years was Professor of Missions at the Kennedy School of Missions in the Hartford Seminary Foundation. These two buff notebooks recount Smith's journey to the USA and some of his travels while in the country. The journals describe...

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Order number: MMS/Special Series/Biographical/Central Africa/611C
Date(s) of creation: 1939-1943
Level: Item
Format: Archive           

Order number: MMS/Special Series/Biographical/Central Africa/611C
Summary: From 1939 to 1944 Edwin W Smith was in the USA and for the first four years was Professor of Missions at the Kennedy School of Missions in the Hartford Seminary Foundation. These two buff notebooks recount Smith's journey to the USA and some of his travels while in the country. The journals describe his journey to the USA and his early experiences at Hartford in September 1939. The next section covers a tour of Canada in 1940 on behalf of the British and Foreign Bible Society and includes meetings with relatives who had settled in Canada. Volume 1 concludes with Smith's 1940 travels on the trail of General Braddock one of his ancestors. Volume 2 is more fragmentary, beginning a trip to San Francisco to the SDA World Convention and a visit to the Aggrey family on the way back [May/June 1942]. Shortly afterwards he made brief notes of a visit to Richmond, Virginia, in connection with his biography of Daniel Lindley. In September 1942 he observed conditions among African Americans as he toured the Deep South. Smith stayed on in the USA from 1943 to 1944 to set up an African Studies Department at Fisk University, Nashville, Tennessee. Along with a couple of brief entries the last part of these journals records at greater length his June 1943 researches in setting up this course. It is a valuable record of institutions visited and people consulted, including Mordecai Johnson, Ralph Bunche and W.E.B DuBois. Includes a few loose inserts.
Extent: 2 volumes
Note: Entry in 'Description' field from information supplied by W. John Young, February 2010
Access status: Open
Language: English
Finding aids: A summary of the entries in these diaries is available in the SCRR.
Format: Archive