Digital Collections
The society is committed to increasing access to its collections through digitization and digital preservation. The society's digital archives, Pearl, provides congregations, researchers, and the general public with educational and inspirational resources that showcase Presbyterian, Reformed, and ecumenical history and its relevance to American history and contemporary life.
About Pearl Digital Collections
Our digital collections repository, Pearl, provides access to a growing number of digitized and born digital objects from our collection, such as images; publications; manuscripts; audiovisual materials, including oral histories; and websites of presbyteries, synods, national agencies, and related ecumenical organizations. The digital collections are particularly focused on themes related to overseas and national mission work, ecumenical and interfaith activities, education, and social and political issues and activism.
Pearl is named in honor of Nobel Prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck. The daughter of Presbyterian missionaries to China Caroline and Absalom Sydenstricker, Pearl S. Buck also served as a missionary to China from 1914 to 1933 in Anhui Province, the region depicted in her novel, The Good Earth.
Katie Geneva Cannon Digital Collection
The Katie Geneva Cannon Digital Collection began in 2021 with the goal of having a single online repository for the personal records of Dr. Katie Geneva Cannon, the first Black woman ordained in the Presbyterian Church and a founding voice in womanist theology.
Religious News Service Photographs Digitization Project
PHS is the recipient of a 2023 National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) Humanities Collections and Reference Resources Implementation grant to digitize 22,500 images, newspaper clippings, and related documents from the Religious News Service Photograph Collection.
LOCATION AND HOURS
425 Lombard St
Philadelphia, PA 19147
Tues, Wed, Thur, Fri: 9 am to 4 pm
CONTACT US
Phone: (215) 627-1852
Email: refdesk@history.pcusa.org