Collection Timeline

1996 to 2026

1996
This exhibit explores the story of Billy Sunday, one of the twentieth century's best known evangelists. By the time of his death in 1935, he had preached to millions, and it is estimated that three hundred thousand men and women were led to faith in Christ at his over two hundred campaigns.

1998
Welcome to a return trip to the early part of the 1900s through some of the photographs taken or gathered by missionary Laura Collins. The images displayed here are one woman's view, mostly of Kenya, at the beginning of the twentieth century, probably before 1914. They depict the country's society, customs, economics, and geography, as well as its growing Christian church, the missionary community assisting in that endeavor, and Collins herself. Also included are some photographs from Cameroon, the Belgian Congo and Uganda.

2001
This exhibit explores the process of transferring the leadership of the church and affiliated ministries from missionaries to national Christians. The administrative records of mission agencies, the personal papers of missionaries, and the reflections recorded in oral history interviews all document this important component of spreading the gospel throughout the world.

2005
From 1922 to 1932, under the leadership of Paul Rader, the Chicago Gospel Tabernacle (or Tab) was one of the most dynamic ministries in the United States. This exhibit tells their story.

2011
After decades of seeming to withdraw from American popular culture, Protestant Evangelicals energetically returned in the mid-to-late-1940s. This was the beginning of a new generation of Evangelicals who were vigorous actors in American society, not only in religious terms but also in social and political spheres. One event, especially, can be considered the starting point of that return: The mammoth rally held by the Chicagoland Youth for Christ organization that brought tens of thousands to Chicago’s Soldier Field on May 30, 1945. The unique event, which attracted national media attention, not only honored those serving in the world war overseas, but also announced YFC’s commitment to proclaim the Good News of salvation through Jesus Christ.

2017
Jonathan Blanchard was many things to many people during his life. He was a farmer, a scholar, and a preacher. A husband, a father, and a friend. But he was also a disciplinarian, an idealist, and an outspoken reformer. Jonathan Blanchard’s many roles reveal the complex man behind the accomplishments.

2018
As a building absorbs the desires and dramas of its occupants, it develops its own personality and relevance as a historic landmark. An unbuilt building, like the road not taken, implies alternate paths, unknown vistas and fresh perspectives, existing quite apart from what is actually realized. Architect Daniel Liebskind observes in Never Built New York, “Herein lies the paradox of unbuilt and unperformed works…They live their own existence, oblivious to time….It lies in the beholder’s imagination.” The following blueprints depict structures intended for the Wheaton College campus, but were rejected for varying reasons.

2019
Presentation of Wheaton Archives & Special Collections' digitized copy of Martin Luther's Operationes in Psalmos (1519), with marginalia from Sigimundus, a student of Luther.

2025
This exhibit consists of a selection of posters from Wheaton Archives & Special Collections that have been used in the ministry of Christian evangelism, primarily in the 20th century.

2026
This exhibit tells a small part of the story linking the killing of five American missionaries in the Amazonian jungle of Ecuador in 1956 and the planting of the Christian faith among the same Waorani people responsible for the killings.