Harvie M. Conn Collection (#002)

WTS manuscript collection 002 contains the papers of Harvie Maitland Conn (1933-1999). Since Conn was a life-long theologian in the Reformed tradition, as well as a missionary, scholar and professor, his papers reflect his career and contain almost entirely materials that concerning Christianity, Presbyterianism, Reformed theology, and missionary work in Korea in the 1960s, as well as domestically in the United States. The Conn collection is divided into a number of series, the first of these being College, Universities and Seminaries. This series is divided into sub-series and are arranged alphabetically by the name of the institution. Note that there are two sub-series referring to WTS. The first contains documentation of Conn’s academic matriculation as a student in the 1950s. The second sub-series concerns his career as an instructor at WTS. The next series contains Correspondence, which is the single largest series in this collection. Conn corresponded with many hundreds of people, most of whom represented some Christian institution or organization. Normally, when the name of the correspondent is known, Conn filed his correspondence according to the name of the correspondent, rather than the name of the institution with which the correspondent was affiliated. This is true even in instances when Conn wrote to people at WTS, and in compliance with standard archival processing practices, this arrangement has been maintained in this collection. One of the characteristics of Conn’s correspondents is the proliferation of Dutch names, such as Ahlfeldt, Boersma, Van Dalen, Van Der Werf, Van Wyck, and others. Since the theology of the Dutch Reformed Church is similar to that of Calvinism in the Presbyterian Church, there is a great deal of cross-over between the Scottish Calvinists and the Dutch Reformed theologians—hence the great quantity of materials received from Dutch Reformed Christians. Another matter of note concerning the correspondence found in this collection is the fact that a great deal of it was produced on paper that does not measure the standard 8 ½ x 11 inches found among American correspondents. This is because a great deal of Conn’s correspondents were from other countries—countries that use metric, rather than imperial standards of measurement. Like other manuscript collections in the WTS archives, this collection contains a series for Organizations and Associations. Conn was involved over a hundred Christian organizations—especially organizations involved in missionary work, and the materials in this collection document Conn’s involvement in these organizations. The next series contains a wide array of documentation on Presbyterianism. Within this series are a few sub-series—these being for the Associate Reformed Presbyterian Church, the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, the Korean Presbyterian Church, the Orthodox Presbyterian Church, the Presbyterian Church of America, and the Reformed Presbyterian Church. These sub-series are further subdivided. Individuals like Conn invariably accumulated materials from Scholars and Associates, and a series has been set aside for just such documentation. Conn also collected a large assortment of papers on a wide variety of Subjects, and a series exists in this collection for the arrangement of such materials, as well. Conn, like all theologians, wrote a great deal, and for that reason a series had to be established specifically for his Writings. This series is further divided into sub-series, for Articles, Books, Essays, and Sermons. Among other things, the researcher will notice while using this collection guide is the notation “KLM.” This indicates that the folder in question contains Korean Language Materials. Since Conn spent several years in Korea there is a significant quantity of documentation written in Korean in Conn collection.