Research Collections
The Young Center features unique research resources including rare books and manuscript material related to the Amish, the Brethren and Mennonites in eastern Pennsylvania, and the Ephrata Cloister. The Young Center welcomes students and scholars to research in the collections Monday through Friday from 8:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.
Donald F. Durnbaugh Research Collection
- Dozens of rare books related to German Radical Pietism, such as works by Gottfried Arnold, Brethren writers, and the Ephrata community
- Hundreds of recent books on Pietism, Anabaptism, and communal groups
- Durnbaugh’s research files and notes
Emmert and Esther Bittinger Research Collection
- Several rare books from the Ephrata Press
- Rare books by Brethren writers
- A nineteenth-century music manuscript from the Snow Hill community
G. N. Falkenstein Collection
- Extensive diaries ca. 1898-1949 on Falkenstein's work with Elizabethtown College and his ministry correspondence
- Family records and photos of the Falkenstein and Shellenbarger families—copies of early nineteenth-century tax and land records for southern York County
- Approximately 600 stereoscopic slides from the turn of the twentieth century on such topics as political events, the Spanish American War, exotic geographical locations, and humor
Bucher Sisters Collection
- 130 patterns for prayer coverings, some labeled or dated, that the sisters created for women in the Annville Church of the Brethren
- Journals kept by all three sisters between the 1930s and 1960s
Roscoe Hinkle Collection
- Questionnaires completed by Church of the Brethren young adults in the early 1940s regarding religious beliefs and attitudes toward war, from a nationwide geographic sampling of Brethren
Papers from the Mid-West Institute of International Relations (1935)
- Speeches and papers from a conference on international relations in Evanston, Illinois, in the summer of 1935
- Speeches by Dan West, Elton Trueblood, and D. W. Kurtz on religious pacifism
- Speeches by Howard G. Moulton, Sidney B. Fay, George H. Blakeslee, and others on international politics and peace
Material on the Brethren Mission in China
- Manuscript material and photographs from missionaries from the Church of the Brethren mission in Shansi Province, China, from 1908 to 1951
Crumpacker Collection
- Copies of the extensive diaries (1924-1951), correspondence, sermons, and miscellaneous writings of Frank and Anna Crumpacker, co-founders of the Brethren mission in China
Anna V. Blough Collection
- Copies of the letters, diaries, and miscellaneous writings of Anna V. Blough, who was in China from 1913 to 1922. (The collection is also available electronically through High Library’s Digital Collections.)
Additional Resources
- Copies of Martyrs Mirror (1685 Dutch edition, 1748 and 1814 German editions), the 1743 Saur Bible, and a variety of early American German hymnals
- Back issues of Die Botschaft and The Budget, as well as periodicals related to the Mennonite Church in the U.S. and Canada, the Church of the Brethren, and Brethren in Christ history