Franklin, James H.

File

Identifier: RG-1035

Staff Only

Scope and Contents

Correspondence, 1898-1949; reports on foreign mission fields, China, also Africa, India, Japan, Europe, 1919-1932; biographical clippings; sermons; texts of speeches, lectures, and addresses.

Dates

Creation: 1845-1945

Creator

Franklin, James H. (James Henry), 1872-1961 (Person)

Language of Materials

All materials within this collection are in English.

Conditions Governing Access

The collection is open for research. Unpublished manuscripts are protected by copyright. Permission to publish, quote, or reproduce must be secured from the repository and copyright holder. Staff may refuse copying of fragile or at-risk materials.

Materials may be accessed by request at the American Baptist Historical Society. For more information on accessing collections or obtaining copies, visit http://abhsarchives.org.

Biographical / Historical

Baptist minister. Pastor in Colorado, and American Baptist denominational executive; President, Crozer Theological Seminary.

Biographical / Historical

Who was James H. Franklin? He was born into a family of plain and hard-working folks in Pamplin, Va., and he found Christ in that home, as well as in Elon Baptist Church, where he was baptized and ordained. He first learned about Richmond College when he saw a certificate in his grandmother's Bible. It was one of the certificates given when a contribution was made to restore the college's endowment in the 1870s. When he arrived at the college in homespun, he had 75 cents in his pocket.

After Richmond College, he attended Southern Seminary and for awhile lived in Colorado. He came into the tribe of Baptists known then as the Northern Convention and, later, as the American Baptist Convention. A Virginian, he had become a Northerner. For 22 years he was foreign secretary of the American Baptist Foreign Mission Society and traveled the world. Following World War I, he toured France on behalf of religious and reconstruction work and was made a member of the Legion of Honor.

In 1934, Franklin delivered his own inaugural address as president of Crozer Seminary. His address stressed the historic Baptist tenet of freedom — “academic freedom in this case but freedom controlled by the Cross of Christ and expressed in sacrificial service; and in conclusion he unfurled to the breezes the banner of a Crozer interdenominational, international and interracial.” The Virginia boy had caught a large vision.

Retrieved from https://baptistnews.com/article/freedomofthespirit/#sthash.FwMkbZ1u.dpuf 7 September 2018.

Extent

4.8 Linear Feet (12 boxes)

Additional Description

Arrangement

Head of Archives and Special Collections Jill Sweetapple imposed the series arrangement, while retaining the order within the files. It is unknown if that arrangement was from a donor, the subject or archival staff.

Bibliography

Stub entry from A Guide to Manuscript Collections in the American Baptist Historical Society, compiled by William H. Brackney and Susan M. Eltscher (Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and Rochester, New York, 1986).