Skip to Main Content

Christian Missions in Africa: Primary sources - other materials

Primary sources

Africa through western eyes [microform] : manuscript records of traders, travellers, soldiers, missionaries and diplomats in Africa.
15 reels, Adam Matthew, 1999.
Microfilm. Van Pelt Microtext: Microfilm 4423. Parts 1 & 2 only.
Finding aid: Online, Adam Matthew website.
• Part 1, reel 7 includes: Uganda, Missionary History, 1876-1927 / George K Baskerville.
• Part 2, reel 10 includes 6 letters, 1858-1859, from David Livingstone to Sir Frederick Grey regarding exploration in eastern Africa.
Empire Online
Not strictly a complete archival collection, but a sampler of documents from many collections distributed by Adam Matthew, with contextual essays. See especially:
• Section I, Cultural contacts, 1492-1969.
• Section IV, Religion and Empire.
eHRAF World Cultures.
A fulltext collection of classic ethnographies, some contributed by missionaries. Individual paragraphs are indexed by subject. Use the Search:Advanced Search interface, search for the Subject = Missions (797), then "Create Another Sub-Group ..." to add other subjects, e.g. Subject = Acculturation and culture contact (177). Results will display sorted by Continent and Culture.

Imagery collections

International Mission Photography Archive - IMPA
Hosted by the USC Digital Library, IMPA brings together images, ca. 1860 to ca. 1960, from many leading missionary society archives and research library collections. Some collections will also be available for viewing through their parent organization's websites. Includes more than 91,000 images from missions in Africa, with a large number of images from the Basel Mission, Danmission (Church of Denmark), Défap (Paris Evangelical Missionary Society), and Catholic Foreign Missionary Society of America.

Books and periodicals as primary sources

Church Missionary Society periodicals
Lay-audience periodicals provide news, journal accounts and reports from missionaries worldwide, 1816-1986. Has a particular concentration on medical missionary journals.
19th Century UK Periodicals: Empire.
Gale Cengage. Searchable fulltext for popular periodicals on travel, anthropology, missionaries, colonialism, and economics published in the UK during the 19th century. Includes Central Africa (Universities' mission), Church Missionary Gleaner (CMS), Medical Missions at Home and Abroad, and many more titles.
British Periodicals. Collections 1 and 2.
ProQuest. Searchable fulltext for popular periodicals published in the UK during the 18th and 19th centuries. Includes church periodicals, e.g., London quarterly and Holborn review (Methodist, 1853-1906), Methodist magazine (Wesleyan Methodist, 1778-1900) as well as general magazines that report on missionary activities.
Christian Mission - Boston University OpenBU.
A fulltext collection of more than 200 books, pre-1923, on missionary activities. Includes Christian missions and social progress: a sociological study of foreign missions / James S. Dennis (3 vols., 1898-1906), missionary manuals, lectures, and personal narratives.
Missionary Research Library pamphlets / Union Theological Seminary
Digitized collection of 3,000+ missionary publications selected from the Missionary Research Library's 20,000-piece collection, held by the Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary.
Theological Commons / Princeton Theological Seminary
One-stop searching for digitized publications (books, pamphlets, journal issues) and manuscript collections from theology collections across the US.
HathiTrust
HathiTrust, an enormous repository for digitized books and periodicals, offers many personal narratives by missionaries. Viewable and downloadable texts are chiefly pre-1923 out of copyright.

Last Updated: Jan 23, 2023 12:52 PM
URL: https://guides.library.upenn.edu/AfricaMissions
Print Page

Subjects: African Studies, Religious Studies