Bamboo Plantation in Nanking (Nanjing, China). Glass lantern slide from the Lin Collection

Bamboo Plantation in Nanking (Nanjing, China). Glass lantern slide from the Lin Collection, acquired by the Yale Divinity Library in 2016. The Lin Collection is a curated set of photographs and printed materials visually documenting Chinese society through the eyes of Western missionaries. Consisting of ca. 900 original photographs, printed materials, rare books, and other artifactshis, the collection pays particular attention to cross-cultural interactions between China and the West, the growth of Christianity in China in the early 20th century, and the development of the indigenous Chinese church.

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Chinese Street View

Glass lantern slide from the Lin Collection, acquired by the Yale Divinity Library in 2016. The Lin Collection is a curated set of photographs and printed materials visually documenting Chinese society through the eyes of Western missionaries. Consisting of ca. 900 original photographs, printed materials, rare books, and other artifactshis, the collection pays particular attention to cross-cultural interactions between China and the West, the growth of Christianity in China in the early 20th century, and the development of the indigenous Chinese church.

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Yenching University Students Perform As You Like It (August 1, 1930)

In this photograph dated August 1, 1930, two Yenching University students act in a school performance of As You Like It. The Yale Divinity Library holds a large amount of documents and images related to Yenching University, as part of the Archives of the United Board of Christian Higher Education in Asia (UBCHEA).

Related Links: Yenching materials in the Yale Divinity Library Special Collections
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Camels at rest

Glass lantern slide from the Lin Collection, acquired by the Yale Divinity Library in 2016. The Lin Collection is a curated set of photographs and printed materials visually documenting Chinese society through the eyes of Western missionaries. Consisting of ca. 900 original photographs, printed materials, rare books, and other artifactshis, the collection pays particular attention to cross-cultural interactions between China and the West, the growth of Christianity in China in the early 20th century, and the development of the indigenous Chinese church.

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Fukien Christian University (Fujian xie he da xue) campus from the Min River in Fuzhou (Fujian, China)

View of the Fukien Christian University (Fujian xie he da xue) campus from the Min River in Fuzhou (Fujian, China).

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Floatplane on the Min River in Fuzhou (Fujian, China)

Floatplane on the Min River in Fuzhou (Fujian, China). The photograph was taken by a  student as part of final exams at Fukien Christian University (Fujian xie he da xue).

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Karl Ludvig Reichelt's notes on Chinese religion

Detail of a manuscript page of the handbook Kinas religioner. Haandbok i den kinesiske religionshistorie (1913 and 1922), by the Norwegian missionary and religious scholar Karl Ludvig Reichelt (1877-1952). Digital copy of an original preserved in the library of the Tao Fong Sghan Christian Centre (道風山基督教叢林), founded by Reichelt in 1930 in Shatin, Hong Kong. 

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Victor Animatograph glass lantern slide from the Lin Collection

Victor Animatograph glass lantern slide from the Lin Collection, acquired by the Yale Divinity Library in 2016. The Lin Collection is a curated set of photographs and printed materials visually documenting Chinese society through the eyes of Western missionaries. Consisting of ca. 900 original photographs, printed materials, rare books, and other artifactshis, the collection pays particular attention to cross-cultural interactions between China and the West, the growth of Christianity in China in the early 20th century, and the development of the indigenous Chinese church.

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Today's Hours

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Recent Acquisitions

Ready for Your Research: The Ingram Family Papers

The Ingram Family Papers follow a family across three generations from the late nineteenth century into the mid-twentieth century. Located in Tongzhou, China and later Beijing as a medical missionary with the ABCFM, James Ingram faithfully recorded his impressions on medicine, politics, and culture for his family in the United States. Notable topics include James’ reflections on mental illness, the treatment and politics of opium addiction, letters from Russia and Europe sent while treating the wounded of WWI, and his daughter Isabel’s reports regarding her experience in the Forbidden City in the late Qing dynasty as the tutor to Empress Wanrong. To read more about the Ingram family and place requests for your own research, visit Collection: Ingram Family Papers | Archives at Yale.
Last modified: 
Wednesday, August 31, 2022 - 9:21am

In Focus

Photograph of Braxton Shelley
Library helps add new voices to Music and the Black Church program

Minister and musicologist Braxton D. Shelley, faculty in the Department of Music and at the Institute of Sacred Music, and Libby Van Cleve, director of Yale Library’s Oral History of American Music (OHAM), have teamed up to launch a series of one-on-one interviews with leaders in gospel music. The OHAM interviews complement Yale’s new Interdisciplinary Program in Music and the Black Church. Shelley founded the program, which is based in the Institute of Sacred Music (ISM), when he arrived at Yale last year. The program engages students and scholars in the Department of Music, the School of Music, the ISM, the Divinity School, and the Department of African American Studies. See full story.

YDS student’s notebook from 1853
Exhibit: Theology at YDS - A Bicentennial Retrospective

This exhibit in the Current Periodical area and Day Missions Room traces the development of the theology faculty at YDS, beginning with Nathaniel W. Taylor's "New Haven Theology" and including D.C. Macintosh, Robert Calhoun, H. Richard Niebuhr, George Lindbeck, Hans Frei, David Kelsey, Margaret Farley, and others.