1 UNA ROBERTS LAWRENCE COLLECTION (Series of the Home Mission Board Records) AR 631 By Taffey Hall, Archivist Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives Revised September, 2011 2 Inventory to the Una Roberts Lawrence Collection AR 631 Summary Main Entry: Una Roberts Lawrence Collection. Date Span: 1839 – 1970 Abstract: Una Roberts Lawrence was a writer and denominational worker for Woman’s Missionary Union and the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention. She was the Home Mission Board Study Editor from 1926 to 1947 and the Young People’s secretary for the Woman’s Missionary Union from 1920 to 1926. Papers and files collected by Una Roberts Lawrence include both professional and personal. Professional papers include correspondence with missionaries, photographs, clippings, reports, publications, typescripts of documents, and articles. Her collection is divided into fourteen subseries: Black missions, Cuban missions, Historical files, Indian missions, Jewish missions, Mexican-American missions, Missionaries and denominational workers-correspondence, and biographical, Mountain missions, New Orleans missions, Panama missions, Rural/Migrant missions, Subject tiles, and Woman’s Missionary Union. Personal papers include correspondence and subject files. Size: 27 linear ft. Collection #: AR 631 Biographical Sketch Una Roberts Lawrence (1893 – 1972) served as leader and writer for the Woman’s Missionary Union and the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention for much of the twentieth century. The daughter of Hulett Wayne and Mary Moffitt Roberts, she was born August 6, 1893, in Gainesville, Arkansas. She graduated from Cabot High School (where her father served as principal) in 1910; earned an A.B. degree from Central College in Conway, Arkansas in 1918; and a B.T.M. degree from the Woman’s Missionary Union Training School in Louisville, Kentucky in 1919. Lawrence also attended Ouachita College in Arkadelphia, Arkansas (1909 – 1910) and the University of Louisville (1917 – 1918). Active in Southern Baptist life, she dedicated more than thirty years of service to the Southern Baptist Convention. She served as the Arkansas state Sunbeam Band leader (1915), the young people’s secretary for the Woman’s Missionary Union (1916 – 1926), and the mission study editor for the Home Mission Board of the Southern Baptist Convention from 1926 to 1947. Aside from Southern Baptist service, Una Roberts worked as a public school teacher and piano instructor in Arkansas before beginning her active career in work for the denomination. Her numerous books include: The King’s Own (1920), Cuba for Christ (1925), Just Around the Corner Tales (1926), The Life of Lottie Moon (1927), Pioneer Women (1929), and The Word of Their Testimony (1932). Una Roberts married railroad employee, Irwin Lawrence, February 25, 3 1920, after a six-year courtship. She died on January 13, 1972 in Jacksonville, Arkansas and is buried in the Mount Moriah Cemetery in Kansas City, Missouri. Scope and Content Notes The Una Roberts Lawrence Collection includes twenty-seven linear feet of material spanning from 1839 to 1970, with the bulk of the material dating in the 1920’s – 1940’s. Many of the materials from the 1800’s are transcribed versions of original correspondence and minutes. The Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives received the Lawrence Collection in 1985. The Una Roberts Lawrence Collection comprises one component of the Home Mission Board materials in the SBHLA and is one of the most valuable portions of those materials. It is divided into two major sections (professional papers and personal papers), and then into various sub- series within each of those sections. The professional papers section contains material Lawrence collected during her thirty plus years of service to the Southern Baptist Convention. Lawrence, in her position as mission study editor for the Home Mission Board, accumulated an assortment of information on Southern Baptist’s home mission efforts in the early decades of the twentieth century, including correspondence with missionaries, articles about missions, biographical data on missionaries, photographs, typescripts from original documents, clippings, and various publications. Her collection provides insight into various outreaches of the Home Mission Board, including black, Cuban, Indian, Italian, Jewish, Mexican-American, mountain, New Orleans, and Panama missions and also missions with migrant workers. Historical materials on the Home and Foreign Mission Boards, Baptist work in various portions of the nation, and the Woman’s Missionary Union are also part of the collection. 4 The personal papers portion of the Lawrence Collection is divided into two sub-series: correspondence and subject files. The bulk of this section is comprised of correspondence between Una Roberts and her fiancé and later husband, L. Irwin Lawrence. Mr. Lawrence was a railroad employee and spent much time traveling, therefore necessitating the need for copious correspondence between himself and Roberts. Largely through their letters, Roberts and Lawrence maintained a six-year courtship before marrying in 1920. They wrote hundreds of letters to one another as a means through which they sustained a distance relationship. Correspondence has been divided by person and year. Most of the subject files of the personal papers portion of the Una Lawrence Collection provide information about Lawrence’s life before she entered Southern Baptist work. Files in the Lawrence Collection were transferred to the Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives from the Home Mission Board in 1985. The files had originally been stored in cardboard file cabinets (at the HMB) in poor environmental conditions. Additionally, much of the collection is on highly acidic paper. The existing alphabetical arrangement was retained in most of the sub-series portions of the collection. An alphabetical arrangement was established for the subject files and Woman’s Missionary Union sub-series of the professional papers portion of the collection, and also for the entire personal papers portion of the collection. Additional Home Mission Board posters from the Lawrence Collection are located in the map case of the archives. Arrangement Section One, Professional Papers I. Black Missions (Boxes 1 – 5) II. Cuban Missions (Boxes 5 – 8) III. Historical Files (Boxes 9 – 10) IV. A. Baptist Biographies (Box 9) B. Baptist Subject (Box 9) C. Home Mission Board History (Boxes 9 – 1) V. Indian Missions (Boxes 11 – 12) V. Italian Missions (Box 13) VI. Jewish Missions (Box 13) VII. Mexican-American Missions (Boxes 13 – 14) VIII. Missionaries and Denominational Workers, Correspondence and Biographical Files (Boxes 15 – 15a) IX. Mountain Missions (Box 16) X. New Orleans Missions (Box 16 – 17) XI. Panama Missions (Box 17) XII. Rural/Migrant Missions (Box 17) XIII. Subject Files (Boxes 18 – 22) XIV. Woman’s Missionary Union (Boxes 23 – 24) Section Two, Personal Papers, Correspondence XV. Correspondence (Boxes 25 – 26) XVI. Subject Files (Box 26) 5 Provenance Donated by the Home Mission Board, 1985. Preferred Citation Una Roberts Lawrence Collection, Southern Baptist Historical Library and Archives, Nashville, Tennessee Access Restrictions None Subject Terms Beall, Noble Young, 1900 – 1947 Burroughs, Nannie Diaz, Alberto J. Garrett, Christine Lawrence, John Benjamin, 1871 – 1968 Tichenor, Isaac Taylor, 1825 – 1902 McCall, Moses Nathanael, 1874 – 1947 Compere, Ebenezer Lee, 1833 – 1895 Stumph, Calowa William Gartenhaus, Jacob, 1896 – Bell, Paul Carlyle, 1886 – 1954 Mather, Juliette Mallory, Kathleen Moore, 1879 – 1954 Armstrong, Annie Walker, 1850 – 1938 Southern Baptist Convention, Home Mission Board Southern Baptist Convention, Woman’s Missionary Union Indians of North America – Missions Missions – Cuba Missions – Panama Rural Missions African Americans – Missions Missions to Jews Related Material Selected resources in book collection by Lawrence Cuba for Christ, 1926 Home mission trails, 1931 Just around the corner, 1926 Look upon the fields, 1930 Lottie Moon, 1927 Meet the missionaries, 1936 No other name, 1930 Pioneer women, 1929 Trail of seed, 1941 6 Winning the border, 1935 Archival Collections SBC, Home Mission Board, Minutes, AR 631-1 SBC, Home Mission Board, Historical Collection, AR 631-13 SBC, Home Mission Board, Cuba Mission Collection, AR 631-16 SBC, Home Mission Board, Executive Office Records, AR 631-3 Folder Listing Section One – Professional Papers I. Black Missions (Boxes 1-5) Box 1 1.1 Abington, A.J. (Mrs.) – correspondence, 1940 – 1942 (Baptist Woman’s Missionary and Education Convention of Missouri) 1.2 Adult Book – clippings, articles, correspondence, 1940’s 1.3 Alabama Baptists and Blacks – research Material, 1839 – 1865 1.4 Alldredge, E.P. – “The New Racial Situation: The Way Out” 1.5 Anderson, Marian (Singer) – Negro Series 1.6 Association of Southern Women for the Prevention of Lynchings – miscellaneous 1.7 Baptist Fellowship Center (Clarence Jordan) – correspondence, newsletters, articles, miscellaneous material 1.8 Baptist Home Mission Monthly, 1880’s – articles 1.9 Beall, Dr. Nobel Y. – biographical data, correspondence, pamphlets 1.10 Beall, Dr. Nobel Y. (Home Mission Board) – correspondence, pamphlets 1.11 Biographical data on Negro leaders 1.12 Bishop College – photographs 1.13 Book (Negro Series) – bibliographic information 1.14 Book (Negro Series) – Committee on – general information 1.15 Book (Negro Series) – expenses 1.16 Book (Negro Series) – general