Guide to the Emma Sibley Papers
Open for research.
Born on August 18, 1826, Emma Eve Longstreet married Josiah Sibley in 1860. She was a founding member and president of the Ladies' Aid Society of Second Presbyterian Church, Augusta, Georgia; an organizer of the Presbyterian Church in the U.S. (PCUS) Women of the Church; and vice-president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union. Through her friendship with Anna Safford, a PCUS missionary to China, Sibley took up the cause of establishing a home for single women missionaries at Soochow (Suzhou) Station. She led the efforts to build support and raise money for the building, which came to be known as “The Sibley Home.” In collaboration with Jennie Hanna of Kansas City, Missouri, Sibley was responsible for establishing the first presbyterial and synodical organizations in the PCUS in 1888. She died in 1898.
The collection contains the personal papers of Emma Sibley, primarily correspondence documenting her work to raise money and support for building the Sibley Home in Soochow, China, 1884-1897. Also included is correspondence documenting activities of the Ladies' Aid Society of Second Presbyterian Church, Augusta, Georgia, 1884-1896; correspondence documenting the efforts of Sibley, along with Jennie Hanna, to organize the women of the PCUS into women's missionary societies and presbyterials, 1888; a scrapbook of "Letters and Papers concerning the Organization of the Women of the Presbyterian Church, U.S., by Miss Jennie Hanna, Mrs. Sibley, and Others,” 1887-1889 and 1915; a history of the Ladies' Aid Society of the Second Presbyterian Church, Augusta, Georgia; a history of the building of the Sibley Home in Soochow, China; and several miscellaneous papers, including a 1905 clipping showing the Sibley Home and its residents.
The Sarah Elizabeth Fleming Papers (accession 984.92) include three photographs of the Sibley Home in Soochow.
Received from Mrs. A.S. Gardner in 1934 and 1943.
A preliminary inventory is provided in this guide. Guide revised in 2009 by Jennifer Barr, Archives Intern.
Emma Sibley Papers, RG 434, Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
| Box | Folder | Description | |
| 1 | 1 | Correspondence: Anna Safford, 1884-1889 | |
| 1 | 2 | Correspondence: Women Missionaries’ Home, China, 1885 | |
| 1 | 3 | Correspondence: Women Missionaries’ Home, China, 1886 Jan.-Apr. | |
| 1 | 4 | Correspondence: Women Missionaries’ Home, China, 1886 May-Nov. | |
| 1 | 5 | Correspondence: Women Missionaries’ Home, China, 1887-1897 | |
| 1 | 6 | Correspondence: PCUS Women’s Organization, 1888 | |
| 1 | 7 | Correspondence: miscellaneous, 1891-1896 | |
| 1 | 8 | Notes regarding funds for Women Missionaries’ Home, China, undated | |
| 1 | 9 | “History of the Building of the ‘Sibley Home’ in Soochow, China,” undated | |
| 1 | 10 | History of the Ladies’ Aid Society of Second Presbyterian Church, Augusta, Ga., undated | |
| 1 | 11 | PCUS Women’s Organization, miscellaneous, undated | |
| 1 | 12 | Scrapbook of letters concerning the organization of the women of the PCUS, 1887-1889 and 1914 | |
| 1 | 13 | Miscellaneous papers, 1886, 1905 and undated |