Manuscript and Archival Collections

Black and white circuit photo of the Baptist Young People's Union of Gaston County.

Records documenting the activities and interests of the Mecklenburg County (N.C.) chapter of Church Women United, a national, ecumenical Christian women’s community service organization. Consists of record books and scrapbooks containing booklets, budgets, committee lists, correspondence, financial statements, meeting minutes, membership directories, newsletters, pamphlets, and photographs.

Papers of an African-American artist and minister of Charlotte's Clinton Metropolitan AME Zion Church during the 1930s. Includes correspondence and clippings, primarily relating to his attempts to gain recognition as an artist and arranging lectures and exhibits; reports on his lecture tours; the manuscript of and material relating to his book A Portrayal of Negro Life (1936); photographs; and financial information on AME Zion churches in the Charlotte District (1938-39).

Typed transcriptions of the diaries of John Hamilton Cornish, an Episcopal minister in Aiken, South Carolina, from 1833 to 1877.

Papers documenting the activities of the Garr family and Garr Memorial Church throughout the 20th century, with an emphasis on the second half of the century. A large part of the collection is made up of binders containing administrative documents for Camp Lurecrest as well as special anniversary celebration programs for the camp.

Collection is primarily letters (1895-98) written by a Mecklenburg County native and Associate Reformed Presbyterian minister during his long-distance courtship of his future wife, Eva Lee Hickman.

Records of the one of the oldest Presbyterian churches in Mecklenburg County, primarily consisting of eight Books of Session Minutes (1843-1959), which include church membership lists, baptismal records, and minutes of the meetings.

Armenian phylacteries or scrolls containing prayers, readings from the Gospels, magical formulas, and invocations for protection. Includes one manuscript phylactery (undated) with 12 miniature colored paintings of several apostles and saints and one printed phylactery (1698).

The Frances Curry Kerr records related to inclusion at Myers Park Baptist Church is comprised of five folders of printed records related to congregational dialogue and the resulting policy changes concerning matters of sexuality at Myers Park Baptist Church. In particular the records document the question of inclusion for LGBT people in the congregation.

The Frances Curry Kerr records related to inclusion at Myers Park Baptist Church is comprised of five folders of printed records related to congregational dialogue and the resulting policy changes concerning matters of sexuality at Myers Park Baptist Church. In particular the records document the question of inclusion for LGBT people in the congregation.

Collection 390 contains the papers of Reverend Jeff Lowrance (1951-2007), a Presbyterian minister, who served six different congregations from 1975 to 2007. During his thirty-two year career he wrote over 1200 sermons, which make up the majority of this collection.

The Moore family (Lynford Lardner Moore, his wife, Mary Torrance Moore, his son, Wilson Wallace Moore, and daughter, Eliza Gaston Moore, and other relatives, including Nicholas G. Moore and John Wallace Moore) were Christian missionaries in China and Japan in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The collection contains sermons, religious tracts, correspondence with family members overseas, and a selection of family photographs.

Material relating primarily to a celebration (1978) at Myers Park Baptist Church honoring Tillett, a women's rights activist.

Collection contains Gospel song books, dating from 1886 to 1969.

This collection contains the papers of various members of the Pharr and Walker families of Mecklenburg County. Both families were active as ministers and laymen in the Presbyterian Church, and some of the earliest papers relate to the careers of the Rev. Samuel C. Pharr and the Rev. James McCullough Walker.

The collection is a small assortment of papers mostly generated by Selby Daniels, who was a member of Providence Baptist Church, in the late twentieth and early twentieth-first centuries.

Records of RAIN (Regional AIDS Interfaith Network,) an organization founded in 1992 in Charlotte, North Carolina and dedicated to addressing the needs of persons with HIV/AIDS disease in the Carolinas. The collection largely documents events and activities including fund raising, public education, and organizing volunteers.

Records of the Sharon Presbyterian Church, of Charlotte, NC, from 1840 to 2006, including minutes of the Session, 1840-1984; the congregation, 1967-1976; deacons, 1950-1991; and Christian Education Committee, 1956-1965; records of women’s auxiliary organizations, 1870-1983; and correspondence, 1970-1973.

Papers of the pastor (1924-66) of Charlotte's Little Church on the Lane (Moravian Episcopal), who was also a bishop of the Moravian Church in America and leader in the Charlotte community. Includes correspondence (1921-78) relating to the church and to his denominational and civic activities, copies (1933-78) of his newspaper columns, and photographs.

Selected records and histories of a northern Mecklenburg Co. congregation, founded in 1884. Includes minutes, membership lists, and financial accounts of the Women's Auxiliary and Women's Guild; a church history by Bishop Joseph Blount Cheshire Jr. (1927); and an address about Cheshire by Judge Heriot Clarkson (1933).

Publications of the Stanbrook Abbey Press, a monastic press established by Friar Laurence Shepherd in Worcester, England in 1876, and operated by the nuns of the English Benedictine Congregation. The publications feature hand-set printing on handmade papers, and were sometimes illuminated.

Papers, photographs, newspaper clippings, radio broadcast transcripts and sound recordings of Dr. Joseph Samuel Nathaniel Tross, a minister in the AME Zion Church, editor of the Charlotte Post, and civil rights leader in Charlotte, NC from the 1930s until his death in 1971.

Records of the first Unitarian church in North Carolina, founded in 1946. Contains correspondence, minutes and reports of the board of trustees and of church committees, bulletins and newsletters, material relating to the Women's Alliance, and records of denominational affiliations and district Unitarian organizations. Also includes files of the Rev. Sidney L. Freeman, longtime minister of the congregation (1957-88).

Organizational records from the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations Southern Region. The records document the administrative work of the organization, circa 1970-2014. Materials include congregational files; meeting, conference, and committee records and minutes; audit records; directories; and annual reports.

The collection consists of the papers of John (Jack) Weil, circa 1960-2009. This includes, journals, appointment books, papers from Christ Episcopal Church (in Charlotte, NC), Weil family genealogical notes, records from Systems Associates, Inc., and a rare IBM corporate songbook.