Celebrating Thirty Years of East Asian Collections

Missionary photograph album from Seoul, Korea, 1921, David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

This album was assembled around 1921 by a female missionary described as her first name “Edith” in Seoul, Korea. This album includes a small group of Westerners ("our family"), a group of Korean kindergarten children at play, exterior and interior shots of the missionary house "at the Seminary," the "old seminary building," and images of Seoul as well as Ewha kindergarten. The inscription on the inside front cover reads, "Happy Christmas to Bun with much love from Edith, Seoul Korea, Christmas 1921."

This album was acquired with a Gift of the Carl Wesley Judy Endowment Fund for Korean Studies. Rev. Carl Wesley Judy, a graduate from the Divinity School of Duke University in 1943, made great contributions to medical missionary work in Korea through his entire life, and established an endowment to support Korean collection at Duke.

Jones, George Heber, 1867-1919, and Methodist Episcopal Church Board of Foreign Missions. 1910. Christian medical work in Korea. New York : Board of Foreign Missions, Methodist Episcopal Church, Korea Quarter-Centennial Commission, 1910?], David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library, Duke University.

Rev. George Herber Jones (14 August 1867 – 11 May 1919), a Methodist pioneer missionary in Korea, contributed to the spread of Christianity in Korea. He is notable as the first Protestant missionary in Korea who took an academic approach to the research of Korean religions. He arrived in Korea in 1887 as a Methodist minister; while there, he not only made major contributions to the spread of Christianity in Korea, but also founded three academic journals: The Korean Repository, The Korean Review, and Shinhak Wolbo (Theology Monthly). He also played a significant role in encouraging Korean immigration to Hawaii; of the first ship of Korean migrant laborers bound for Hawaii to work on sugar plantations there, which departed on 22 December 1902, more than half came from his church in Incheon.

This paper describes some significant results of medical missions in Korea, medical plans & proposed budget for five cities in Korea, and opportunities for donations to support medical mission in Korea.