The contents of this collection to a small degree illustrate Mrs. Tenney's active participation as an officer in a number of evangelical ministries but mostly the files document her work in the W.U.M.S. and especially the labor she put into her history of that organization, No Higher Honor.

Well over two thirds of the collection consists of various drafts of different parts of the book. Folders 2-3 thru 2-15 contain successive versions of the preface, most chapters, and the appendix (which lists the names of missionaries sent out by W.U.M.S. and some details of their service). Folders 1-13, 1-14, 2-1, and 2-2 contain almost complete drafts of the book at various stages of its development. The manuscript in folder 1-13 is probably the book in its final form except for some missing pages. Other parts of the collection contain the raw material from which Mrs. Tenney constructed the book. boxes 3 and 4 contain hundreds of her research notes. These notes are arranged in their original order and condition, except that where paper clips and rubber bands had been used to separate them into groups, blank card guides have been substituted. Folder 2-16 contains documents or copies of documents she consulted such as wills; papers by Sarah D. Doremus, one of the founders of the W.U.M.S., in which she gives details of the early days of the organization and describes a world tour she took of its mission in the years 1901-1902; a brief history written in 1911 of the Society's work in Japan; a very interesting account by missionary Pollock of life in a Japanese internment camp during World War II; an article about Elizabeth Pollock; an account of the beginning of the Multan Hospital in India; and a very early document outlining the goals of the W.U.M.S. and several endorsements the work had received. Other folders also hold apparent sources such as annual reports, newspaper clippings, and pamphlets put out by the Society describing its work.

There are six files that deal with non-W.U.M.S. matters. File 1-1 contains correspondence with friends of Mrs. Tenney, although here too some of the information in the letters was intended for her book or for an article on W.U.M.S., such as a 1969 letter by a woman missionary describing life in a Japanese internment camp. Folders 1-2 and 1-4 contain copies of reports handed out at a mission executives meeting in 1965 and 1968 describing various aspects of world wide mission activities. Mrs. Tenney's work in the Women's Fellowship of the National Association of Evangelicals is amply documented by numerous copies of minutes of committee meetings, balance sheets, and annual reports. The reports and minutes also describe many of the projects the Fellowship was involved in, such as prayer days, Bible classes, support for missionaries and humanitarian relief, and work for anti-pornography legislation (folders 1-6 to 1-11). Folder 1-5 contains an interesting 1945 booklet entitled Through Shining Archway published by the American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society and the Women's American Baptist Foreign Missionary Society. It describes the careers and martyrdoms of eleven missionaries stationed in the Philippines in 1942. Pictures of the martyrs are included in the booklet.

The collection also includes pamphlets, manuscripts, papers and a scrapbook. Included in Folder 5-1 is a 20th anniversary booklet, 1921-1941, for the Shanghai Union School of Nursing of Margaret Williamson Hospital, as well as a Founder's Day publication for the same hospital. There is one copy of The Sunday School Times, September 17, 1960. A centenary booklet commemorates Mary A. Merriman School, 1880-1980. Miscellaneous re-writes of chapter of No Higher Honor are contained Folder 5-2. A complete manuscript of the supplement to Mrs. Tenney's history, covering the subsequent years 1960-1980, is in Folder 5-3. Newspaper clippings of World Day of Prayer in Wheaton, Illinois, between 1932 and 1949 are in a scrapbook in Folder 6-1. Folder 6-2 contains miscellaneous papers, including a history of the Yokohama Church , 1932, and a movingly-written description of the accidental death of Marion Childress in India in 1963.

ADDENDUM: Final table of contents for No Higher Honor

I. A Seed Long Buried

II. A Bold Venture

III. Scaling Zenana Walls

IV. Gateway to India

V. Education -- A Means to an End

VI. Kahpur -- Merriman School and Orphanage

VII. Jhansi -- Ackerman-Hoyt Hospital

VIII. Fatehpur -- Place of Victory

IX. Fatehpur -- Lily Lytle Broadwell Hospital

X. China -- Creating a New Class of Women

XI. Margaret Williamson Hospital

XII. Japan

XIII. The Multan Story -- W. Pakistan