ELCA Archives

10/03/2025

Tomorrow, we celebrate the installation of the Rev. Yehiel Curry as the presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.

As we prepare for this meaningful occasion, take a look back at the installation services of the ELCA's first four bishops on the ELCA YouTube page, including newly digitized footage of the installations of Bishop Herbert Chilstrom, Bishop H. George Anderson, and Bishop Mark Hanson.

Rev. H. George Anderson was installed as Presiding Bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America on November 18, 1995 at Rockefeller Chapel in Chicago...

06/03/2024

05/19/2022

The ELCA Archives recently received the personal papers of Helen Hawkinson Hanson (1917-2012). Helen served from 1949-1951 as a social worker with the Lutheran World Federation’s Resettlement Service to Refugees. She worked in the British Zone of Germany interviewing displaced persons from Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania for resettlement in the United States.

The papers, comprising personal correspondence, a travel diary, journal, work notebook, photographs, slides, and a two-volume scrapbook, provide a unique look into the work of assisting in the resettlement of people displaced from their home countries by war. Helen’s papers chronicle her time overseas through the correspondence she wrote to her parents, as well as journaling about her work and leisure activities as she traveled throughout post-World War II Germany and Europe.

The collection, PA 278 Helen Hawkinson Hanson Papers, is cataloged in the ELCA Archives catalog with a finding aid and container list. Digitized portions will soon be available to view via the ELCA Archives online catalog.

08/11/2021

The old American Lutheran Church's Board of Foreign Mission released two new color, sound motion picture films in April 1953, telling of missions in India and New Guinea. This one, Balamani, tells the true life story of a Bible Woman in India who devoted her life to ministering to the patients at the Lutheran mission's Katharine Lehmann Hospital in Renigunta, India.

American Lutheran Church Board of Foreign Missions (1953). The film tells the true life story of a Bible Woman in India who devoted her life to ministering t...

06/29/2020

50 years ago today, June 29, 1970, the Lutheran Church in America voted on the ordination of women. The audio of that session is now available at https://youtu.be/rOOWadbdAsg. The vote takes place around the 24:30 mark.

Lutheran Church in America convention audio of the debate and vote on the ordination of women, June 29, 1970.

02/03/2020

Sister Emma Francis was the first African-American deaconess to serve in North America and the first Lutheran deaconess to come from the West Indies. She taught at the Ebenezer Home for Girls, Fredenkstad, St. Croix, Danish territory for the majority of her career. She spent 1921-1927 in Harlem, New York where she helped found the Lutheran Church of the Transfiguration, now the Christ Center at Transfiguration.

01/22/2020

Former ELCA Presiding Bishop Herbert W. Chilstrom passed away this last Sunday. The Friday before we received a few items he sent us to add to his personal papers collection, including his baptismal certificate from November 29, 1931. His baptismal journey is now complete.

09/05/2019

Erin shares some thoughts about researching at the ELCA Archives this summer. It was a pleasure to have her visit.

In this Student View column, Erin Magoon ’21 shares how her summer work in the archives provided an invaluable opportunity to enhance her research, discover women’s voices, and ignite h…

05/10/2019

Beautiful day for a shred! 196 boxes of expiring records are making their final journey from the Records Center to the great beyond (aka the recycling center).

05/07/2019

Tooting our own horn.

This is the latest post in our There’s an Archivist for That! series, which features examples of archivists working in places you might not expect. In this entry, COPA member Anna Trammell brings …