Personal papers of A. J. (Abram Jacob)  Metzler, consisting of sermon outlines, correspondence, subject files, and audio recordings. Records of Metzler's travels and work abroad are included, as are his published articles, his files on congregations he pastored, and a biography of him along with family records.

This collection is divided into the following series:

(1) Sermon Outlines, 1927-1983

(2) Correspondence and Subject Files, 1826, 1919-1993

(3) Audio Recordings, 1956-1996

(4) Photographs and Video Recordings, 1882-1991

The bulk of the collection consists of sermons Alvin preached at the various congregations he served. While some are typed and some handwritten, almost all are verbatim manuscripts, not outlines or notes. Almost all clearly identify when and where the sermon was preached. He also saved some of his class notes from Hartford and Harvard, but very little from Bluffton and nothing from Messiah.

The collection contains no family or personal materials other than a couple folders of correspondence, mostly related to the Vietnam War. Nothing was found related to his experience growing up Old Order Amish or the family’s transition to Beachy Amish; unless he mentions this during oral history interviews in box 8.

This collection contains 27 taped interviews conducted by Tobin Miller Shearer as he was completing his book, Daily Demonstrators: The Civil Rights Movement in Mennonite Homes and Sanctuaries (2010).

Written narratives summarized from oral history interviews Pratt conducted with 13 Amish and Mennonite men regarding their experiences as conscientious objectors in World War II. These interviews were used in Pratt's dissertation, "A Study in Cultural Persistence: The Amish in LaGrange County, Indiana, 1841 - 1945" (Notre Dame, 1997).

Cassette tapes of oral history interviews conducted in the late 1980s and early 1990s on the "H. S. Bender Era," roughly defined as 1920 to 1960.  The project was sponsored by the Mennonite HIstorical Society, with Al Keim as director.  Accompany the cassette tapes on which the interviews were recorded are indexes to the interviews, background information about interviewees, and some consent forms. No full transcripts of the interviews are available.

Information regarding the World War II experiences of Henry C. Penner, a Mennonite from Wrickler, Manitoba who was arrested for resisting the draft in 1944. Tapes and transcripts of interviews conducted by Leonard Gross with Henry and his son Leonard Penner are included, as is correspondence between the army and Henry’s uncle George Penner concerning the arrest and subsequent court martial. The records of the court martial, some miscellaneous notes and pamphlets, and slides of documents are also included.

Audio recordings of 41 oral history interviews conducted with Mennonite young people (under age 40) at the Mennonite Church USA Convention at Kansas City in July 2019. The collection also includes administrative documentation for the project, including biographical information sheets and informed consent forms for all participants. Transcriptions are available for some, but not all, of the interviews.

Narrators include the following people: Charles Baraka, Sarah Bixler, Victoria Bonners, Corben Weaver Boshart, Ben Woodward Breckbill, Theresa Peachey Crissman, Claire DeBerg, Jordan Farrell, Alisha Garber, Joshua Garber, Clayton Gladish, Anna Groff, Todd Grotenhuis, Emily Hedrick, Moriah Hurst, Danae King, Beny Krisbianto, Erica Lea-Simka, Scott Litwiller, Courtney Malcolm, Jon Mark, Lily Mast, Luke Lehman Miller, Rachel Ringenberg Miller, David Nickel, Dona Park, Mariann Reardon, Elizabeth Marie Regier, Kyle Rodgers, Shawn Rodriguez, Lauren Satchwell, Renae Schmidt Peters, Alysa Marie Short, Meg Short, Anna Showalter, Peter Shungu, Alyssa Bennett Smith, Ben Parker Sutter, Chelsea Tatum, Isaac Villegas, and Maegan Freese Wu.

This collection is divided into two series:  (1) Research Files, 1950-1982, and (2) James and Rowena Lark Materials, 1949-2007.

Organizational records documenting a Mennonite mission agency's efforts to gather information from and organize reunions for former mission and voluntary service workers.  These records contain not only administrative information regarding the mission board's strategy to engage former missionaries and service workers, but also include summaries of oral history interviews with and somewritten reminiscences of former missionaries and service workers about their experiences.

32 cassette tapes containing oral history interviews with 31 individuals or couples: Royal and Evelyn Bauer, Ruth Bauman, Esther Bigler and Leroy Hostetler, Albert and Lois Buckwalter, Joe and Nellie Buzzard, Frank and Anna Byler, John and Bonnie Driver, Minnie Graber, Erma Grove, Ralph and Elizabeth Hernley, Ezra and and Orpha Hershberger, Eunice Histand, Orvin Hooley, Jonathan Hostetler, Ann Kauffman, J. Howard Kauffman, Howard Kaufman, Carl Kreider, Lloyd R. Miller, Mildred Mullet, Glenn Mussleman, Evangeline Neuschwander, Florence Nofziger, Nancy Nussbaum, Clara Raber, Paul Schank, Tilman Smith, Silas J. Smucker, Nelson and Betty Springer, and Alice Yoder. One cassette holds an interview with four Mennonite women - Pauline Yoder Kaufman, Edith Reimer, Gladys Mast, and Hazel Hostetler - about bonnets and prayer coverings, dress codes, women preachers, and MennoHof. Transcripts are not available, but there are brief abstracts of each interview. All interviews were conducted by Floyd L. Rheinheimer.

Researchers should note that the interview with Eunice Histand was recorded on an 8mm video cassette.

These records are divided into eight series:

Series 1: Governing Documents, circa 1945-2005

Series 2: Meeting Minutes and Reports, 1945-2010

Series 3: Publications, 1945-2010

Series 4: Financial Records, 1949-2009

Series 5: Correspondence, 1949-2001

Series 6: Membership Records, 1943-2004

Series 7: Local Chapter Records, 1950-1989

Series 8: Miscellaneous Materials, 1945-2011

This series contains materials collected and created in the Mennonite Publishing House's efforts to document its own history.  It consists of two subseries:

(1) General Historical Files, 1948-2003

(2) Historical Monograph Files, 1970-1991

Begun in January 2001, the Mennonite Women of Color Oral History Project aims to gather and publish faith and life stories of older women of color across the Mennonite Church in North America and worldwide. This collection consists of oral history interviews conducted with Mennonite women from North America, Africa, Asia, Central America, and South America.

Transcripts of the interviews are not available.

25 cassette tapes containing interviews with 19 Mennonites who served in the military from World War II to the Vietnam War:  Brian Arbuckle, Dan Bontrager, James Christophel, Chris Culp, Chuck Hoover, Alvin Hostetler, Stan Liechty, Glenn Mast, Kenneth Miller, Paul Pletcher, Don Reber, Allen Schrock, Levi Slabaugh, Wayne Stopher, Larry Vardaman, Floyd J. Yoder, Gordon Yoder, Herb L. Yoder, and Rick Yoder.  Floyd L. Rheinheimer interviewed all of the subjects.  Brief abstracts of the interviews are available, but no transcriptions have been made.  Also included in this collection is a set of articles and pamphlets from the Mennonoite press regarding military service.

Audio recordings and full transcripts of 16 oral history interviews conducted with early leaders of the Minority Ministries Council (MMC). MMC was a department of the Mennonite Board of Missions that worked to strengthen and support racial and ethnic minority congregations, to assist the church in relating to minority communities, to serve as liaison between militant groups and the church, and to help the church understand and practice the radical discipleship of Jesus Christ.

Interviews were conducted as part of a 2017 reunion and conference that took place in Goshen, Indiana. The collection also contains administrative documentation for the project, including funding proposals, contact lists, schedules, promotional materials, photographs, and audio/video recordings of conference proceedings. Consent forms are available for some, but not all, of the interview participants.

Narrators include the following people: Conrado Hinojosa, Gracie Torres, Helen Brown, Hubert Brown, John Powell, Shirley Powell, John Ventura, José Ortíz, Lee Roy Berry, Jr., Lupe de León, Neftali Torres, Raymond L. Jackson, Seferina de León, Teodoro Chapa, Tito Guedea, and Tony Brown.